The Habit Dip
The Habit Dip(dip)
By Leo Babauta
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This dip is something everyone faces when changing habits: we lose motivation, we get discouraged, we encounter difficulty, we lose focus because other things get in the way, we get sidetracked(ˈsīdtrak) by life.
The dip is completely normal and even predictable when you’re changing an old habit or forming a new one. In fact, anytime you take on a project or goal, you will face this kind of dip.
That’s the bad news — you’ll always hit a dip in motivation, focus, energy.
But there’s good news too:
The dip is temporary, if you keep going through it; and
The dip is an incredible place of learning
The last point is so important I need to repeat it: the dip is an incredible place of learning.
It’s the place where we learn and grow, and get better at facing difficulty.
When things are going well, everything seems easy, and you just have to keep doing the same thing. There isn’t a lot of learning there.
But when things are hard, you have to face the difficulty if you want to keep going, if you want to avoid going to your usual pattern of discouraging yourself or quitting(kwit).
The dip is where the most learning can be found.