Surviving the Dip

My Chinese learning habit booms and crashes like the stock market.

The Dot-Com bubble. The Great Recession. The Turbulent 2020.

Today it hit me – the same thing happens with my Chinese. I’ve given eight sweet years of my life to this language, but my passion doesn’t stay consistent. Sometimes it’s a raging inner fire. Sometimes it cools to a flicker.

Take this year. This summer I was absolutely on one with Chinese. Check out how many hours of listening practice I did during this two week stretch in August:

My motivation had never been higher. I also did dozens of hours of 1:1 lessons (sometimes more than 10 in one week), published a daily 20 minute video on YouTube, and recorded podcast episodes. Despite all the past dips I’d been through, I knew this time would be different.

Then came September – the Write of Passage launch began, and my listening practice started to waver. By October 1st, it had screeched to a halt. This time wasn’t different – life got it the way, and my Chinese learning bottomed out.

Or did it?

See, in past dips that’s exactly what happened. Who could forget –

- The Crash of 2015 – senior year spring. Chinese bumped for Keystone Light
- The Great Recession of ‘17 – Weekly tutoring hours plummet to zero
- The Panic of ‘21 – A four-month halt following an explosive 2020

In past cycles, my Chinese learning would roar to life, then screech to a halt. The highs were filled with rapturous excitement, but in the lows, my learning crashed to zero.

During my August high I was certain things had changed. This is it! I’ve broken through, up and to the right forever! And then, cue the crash.

But this time actually was different.

Yes, my daily listening got replaced by Write of Passage live session prep. Sure, I haven’t recorded a podcast in a couple of months. But because I’ve been doing daily videos since last December, my new floor was “only” publishing a 20 minute daily vocab review. That’s way better than zero!

Look how consistent I’ve been in my “dip” month of October:

If that’s what a “down month” looks like, I’m doing okay. I know my next all-time-high will roar like never before.

Don’t fear slow progress, fear no progress. Keeping a baseline will help you survive the dip.