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The dip: You need to learn how to fail in order to succeed

By Michael Stemmler, The Miami Student

I've written some shit. Not from the perspective that I have written a lot, but, on a few occasions, I have sat down to write and my laptop started to smell like the feces I was scribbling down on the paper.

I knew there was no way I could actually try to publish these, let alone dare to show them to my editor, because who would want to read a rant about Harris Dining Hall, the time I sprayed an RA with Febreze or even a careful evaluation of why all the outlets in my dorm face downward (spoiler: it's because whoever designed them hated the ideas of convenience and ease of access).

With all these articles -- first written, then deleted -- I never realized the true reason of my instinctual scroll to the big red "X" in the corner without saving the documents. It only recently dawned on me that I was simply trying with all my might to avoid the inevitable failure I would have. I have held back from trying to publish my ridiculous ideas because I was afraid of being rejected by my editor or my readers (if I actually have any, shoutout to you). But if I did just go ahead and publish them, would I just fail or be a failure?

We walk a fine line between failing and believing we are failures, and unfortunately, we tend to identify with the latter before we accept the former. If we start to believe that we are failures, it inhibits our ability to succeed and often causes us to give up trying altogether. Yet, if we allow ourselves to fail over and over again, we start to push closer and closer to success.

This phenomenon is called "the dip" and is basically the part where we fail again and again on our road to mastery of any skill or task. Most people choose to quit amid the struggles of the dip, but for those who continue to fail and learn from their failures, they start to move out of the dip and rapidly upward on the road to excellence.

Here, in the depth of the dip, is where we most often associate ourselves as being failures instead of accepting the fact that we are failing.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once declared, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," but the truth is that the one thing we have to fear most is deeming ourselves as failures.

In that state, nothing is possible and we all turn back to mediocrity instead of embracing excellence. In my mindset, I didn't just write stupid articles that would fail, but I wrote stupid articles that made me a failure.

Where did this lead me? Honestly, I wish I knew.

The sad reality is that I'm probably not even in the dip yet, which means I have a long way to go from here. But as the late great Bob Ross said, "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents." Like Bob Ross, I realized that I had to separate my idea of my self from the idea of my work. The two are different and should be treated as such. When we identify with our work, we believe we are failures if our work fails.

However, as I go through my trials and tribulations, my past fear of being a failure has subsided, because I know that as each failure comes, I am only getting closer to ultimate success.

So stay tuned -- you might just stumble upon some random rant or strange story from me in the future as I slowly but surely work my way up in opinion writing. But, my real hope is that when you encounter your own "L's" each day, you realize each of them is just another "W" hidden in disguise.

stemmlmf@miamioh.edu