By Ann Guo

The Dip occurs all the time. You are working at something and suddenly things get hard or you fail a bit at some tasks. Working through the Dip to get to the other side enables you to achieve a higher level of accomplishment and sets you up in a better place than your competitors. 

Often, huge benefits accrue to those that make it to the other side. The bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. So, pushing through our natural tendency to quit when things are difficult might be beneficial.

Yet, according to Seth Godin, winners do quit. Not staying at something too long, that is, having lower grit, might be to your benefit if you are able to see when your job is going nowhere and it’s time to make a change. The catch is that you need to distinguish between wanting to make a change because things are hard or making a change that will benefit you.

In the end, those people who seek the Dip and take it as a challenge to prove themselves are the ones that thrive and are the most successful–as long as they are thoughtful about it.  A challenge just for its own sake will not help you, but pushing through the Dip to acquire skills, achieve goals, or maintain energy is worth the effort.