Can You Make it Through the Passion Dip?
Why Most People Give Up on Their Passion Too Soon — and How to Know If You Should Stick or Quit
“Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.”
— Seth Godin
About a decade ago, I went to my first handstand class. I’d done a wall handstand in a CrossFit workout and was stunned — this was something you could actually learn? I became obsessed. If I could hold a freestanding handstand for five seconds, I thought, I’d finally become the superhero I’d always dreamed of being.
Around the same time, Instagram was exploding — and handstands were everywhere. Suddenly, everyone wanted to learn them. Friends posted progress pics, swapped drills, and met up to practice together.
But one by one, they dropped off.
Meanwhile, I was falling deeper in. In the world of hand balancing (the official circus term for people who spend ungodly amounts of time upside down), I practiced drills every chance I got — usually for over hour a day. And almost everyone I knew who started handstands eventually stopped.
When I asked why, I’d hear things like:
“I’m too tall/uncoordinated/weigh too much/etc.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I’m just not that good at them.”
But here’s the truth: no one is naturally good at handstands. We’re not born knowing how to hold ourselves upside down. In the circus world (which is very different from gymnastics), I’ve observed people of all shapes and sizes learn to do a handstand, so body type isn’t super relevant, either. I’m not even sure starting young makes it easier — I’ve seen plenty of kids flop just as hard as adults. That’s why handstands are such an interesting example (at least to me).
Because what all those people were really saying when they quit was this:
They weren’t willing to make it through the Passion Dip.
What is the Passion Dip?
Most new passions begin with pure curiosity. You start going down rabbit holes — watching YouTube videos, reading articles, maybe even trying something you’ve always wanted to try but never gave yourself permission to. There’s a lot of learning, and a lot of fast improvement.
In psychology, this stage is called unconscious incompetence — you don’t even know what you don’t know yet. And because of that, early progress feels magical. Every gain is thrilling. If you’re learning handstands, maybe your wall hold time jumps from 15 to 30 seconds in a week. That’s a big gain! That kind of progress is motivating. You feel momentum. You assume it’ll just keep going — linear, fast, and rewarding. Forever.
But then something happens.
Your progress slows. Maybe it stops altogether. If you're training handstands, those gains start to shrink: from ten seconds to one, to none. Some days, you might even go backwards.
This moment — the frustrating gap between early excitement and real mastery — is what Seth Godin calls the Dip. In his wise little book The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (And When to Stick), he describes it like this:
“At the beginning, when you first start something, it’s fun... Over the next few days and weeks, the rapid learning you experience keeps you going... And then the Dip happens. The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery.”
It’s the slog that separates dabblers from the truly committed.
But when it comes to passion — when you’re pursuing something you love, something that feels meaningful or identity-shaping — this moment often hits even harder. It’s not just a motivational slump. It’s the point where you start to question your talent, your time, even your worth (speaking from experience here).
I call it the Passion Dip.
The Passion Dip is when the thrill wears off and the real work begins. It’s when the feeling of passion wears off, progress stops feeling fun and starts feeling like a grind. It’s where most people quit — not because they don’t care, but because they didn’t expect the crash.
And it shows up everywhere.
In handstands. In writing. In learning guitar or starting a business or launching a Substack.
The beginner’s high gives way to the messy middle… which inevitably leads to the Passion Dip. There’s no avoiding it.
And as Godin says:
“Almost everything in life worth doing is controlled by the Dip.”
Especially the things we love most.
Pre-Deciding to Make it Through
But here’s the thing about the Passion Dip: If you don’t expect it, it’ll knock you flat.
If you do expect it, you can decide — before it hits — whether it’s worth sticking through.
That’s what I did with handstands.
Not long after I started taking my handstand training seriously, I found myself in this underground circus gym in San Francisco. It was gritty and magical — and I loved it. I was surrounded by hand balancers, contortionists, and acrobats who trained for hours a day. As far as I could tell, I was the only non-professional in the place.
I was amazed at what they’d taught their bodies to do. Always curious about process, I’d ask them how long it took to get that good. Ten years, some would say. Twelve. One guy casually mentioned he’d been training handstands for over fifteen years. He was still grinding away at his craft.
I remember standing there in the middle of that gym in the early days, taking it all in — the monotonous drills, the never-ending conditioning, the total lack of applause — and making a decision:
I’m going to do what they do. I’m going to keep going, no matter how hard or boring it gets, no matter how long it takes. I’m not going to give up on handstands.
That decision didn’t mean I stopped hitting dips. I hit plenty.
But I stopped negotiating with myself every time it got hard. Because I’d already chosen.
And that’s one of the biggest differences I see between people who stay in love with their passion for years or even decades… and the ones who bail at the first dip.
They choose to make it through. Not in the moment. But before the moment comes.
The Right Way to Quit
That doesn’t mean all quitting is bad. In fact, quitting is essential. It’s the only way to fully embrace a passion — because passion, by definition, requires focus. We can’t give our hearts to everything. We have limited time on earth (see: Four Thousand Weeks _link) and even more limited attention. At some point, we have to choose.
(Even not choosing is choosing in a way: it means we choose nothing at all.)
Quitting something you don’t care enough about is what frees you to go all in on what you do.
The problem isn’t quitting. The problem is how we quit.
In my experience — and in the stories of the passionate people I’ve interviewed for this Substack — there are two kinds of quitting.
The first is reactive quitting. This is quitting from inside the Passion Dip — when you panic, get discouraged, or feel like you’re not good or talented enough, and walk away just to escape the discomfort.
I’ve done this more times than I’d like to admit. I’ve:
Quit projects the moment they stopped being fun
Walked away from skills I wasn’t instantly good at
Given up not because I didn’t care, but because I hated feeling like a beginner
Reactive quitting feels like relief in the moment — but regret in the long term. It’s quitting before you’ve actually decided whether the thing is meaningful to you or not.
The second is strategic quitting. This is when you hit the Passion Dip — and make a conscious choice not to go through it. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s not the right kind of hard.
I’ve done this, too. I’ve:
Let go of things I thought I should love but didn’t (see: surfing)
Realized I liked the idea of something more than the actual doing (also: surfing)
Chosen to walk away before I got deep in, so I could give my full energy to something else
Strategic quitting creates space. It’s what allows you to go all in where it matters.
How to Decide
So how do you know the difference? How can you tell if you’re quitting something that just isn’t right — or giving up on something that could become something deeper?
Here’s the truth: you almost never know at the beginning.
Early passion requires experimentation. Curiosity. Play. You have to give yourself time to move from unconscious incompetence to something more informed. That process takes time, effort, and an open mind.
But sometimes, you can tell early on.
When I started training at the circus gym, I knew pretty quickly I didn’t want to become a contortionist or master juggling. I respected the skills, but I wasn’t curious about the process. My back was about as flexible as a ruler, and juggling put me to sleep. No amount of discipline was going to change the simple fact that I just didn’t care enough.
(Handstands, on the other hand, were a different story. I didn’t care how boring the drills were. I couldn’t get enough of them.)
But once you’ve done enough to form a real opinion — once you’ve seen what the messy middle of the Passion Dip actually involves — here are a few questions I’ve found helpful:
1. Do you enjoy actually doing the thing—or just having done it?
(Be honest. Do you like writing — or just the idea of being “a writer”?)
2. Are you fascinated by the nerdy little details that other people might find excruciating? (This is a huge clue.)
3. Does the time you spend on this thing feel aligned with your values? (Not every moment has to feel joyful — but does it matter to you?)
If the answer to most of these is a strong no, quit. Not later — now. Save your energy for something that actually lights you up.
But if the answer is yes?
If you feel even a hint of love for the process — if you’re delighted by things other people ignore — if the time you spend on it feels meaningful?
Then your early passion might be the real thing. And that means you need to prepare yourself for the Passion Dip.
The Passion Decision
So much of this comes down to self-awareness. Noticing how you feel when you’re doing something. Paying attention to what energizes you — and what drains you. Recognizing when you feel most like yourself. And then making a conscious decision about how to use your time.
Because here’s the thing: Long-term passion isn’t about always feeling lit up. It’s about choosing to keep going, even when you’re not.
The Passion Dip is never fun. And if you stick with a passion long enough, you’ll hit many.
But if you’ve already decided you’ll make it through, you don’t have to renegotiate every time it gets hard.
Whether they said it outright or not, every passionate person I’ve interviewed for this Substack made that decision at some point. They chose to keep going. They knew it would be hard — and they decided it was worth it.
I did the same with handstands. That’s why, a decade later, you can still find me upside down on a sunny day, practicing my drills.
So if you're in the Passion Dip right now — pause. You don’t have to muscle through.
But do ask yourself:
Is this something I want to choose?
If the answer is yes — keep going.
If not — quit intentionally. Then keep experimenting until you find something you care enough about to stick with.
Either way, choose on purpose.
Such important information, Krista!!