Do Hard Things

When someone tells me a goal is hard, they usually mean that as a reason not to do it. I hear it as a reason to do it.

Hard things make us stronger. If we keep arranging our lives around what is easy, we can complete plenty of tasks without having to change. We get the satisfaction of checking something off, but we miss the growth that comes from becoming someone who can do a hard thing.

So here is what I want you to practice: do hard things, and stop complaining about doing them.

Change your thoughts instead of making the goal easier

When I started my Five Pounds Stronger project, with the goal of putting on five pounds of muscle in 90 days, my brain had plenty to say. There were complaints, excuses, and moments of feeling sorry for myself.

I paid attention to those thoughts and how they made me feel. But I didn't use them as a reason to quit.

We know our thoughts create our feelings. That means we can change our thoughts instead of changing the circumstance to make it easier. I could keep the hard goal and work on the way I thought about it.

That is the work I want you to do. Instead of reducing the thing you want to accomplish so your brain will stop complaining, change your thoughts so you can do the harder thing. Let yourself grow into the person who can accomplish it.

The hard part is feeling your feelings

At a retreat, I coached a woman who wanted to make losing weight easier. That sounds reasonable. If it were easier, wouldn't she be more likely to do it?

But I asked her to stop trying to make it easy and let it be hard.

When you aren't overeating, you are left with yourself. You're left with your emotions, your urges, your hunger, and your emotional deprivation. You have the opportunity to learn how to feel and process what comes up.

That is a skill. As you practice it, you get better at doing hard things.

I don't believe there are average people. I think everyone is extraordinary. The people willing to do hard things get to experience how extraordinary they are. They are willing to feel negative emotion on purpose in order to grow.

Your goal is only one of the benefits

Putting on muscle was the result I wanted from my project. But the result wasn't the only reason to do it.

There are what I call strategic byproducts: increased discipline, more ability to feel your emotions, momentum toward success, and a stronger relationship with yourself. You learn to trust yourself because you show up, honor your word, and do what you said you would do.

If there were a pill that gave me five pounds of muscle, I could get the physical result without evolving through the process. I wouldn't get those same byproducts.

I love support from other people. Working out with my boyfriend made a difference. But I also knew I would go without him, and on the days he couldn't come, I did. His support was a bonus. My willingness to experience the emotions and follow through was something I could rely on myself to provide.

Activate the thoughts that fuel your action

A thought you want to believe isn't doing the work just because you can say the sentence. I call a thought activated when it creates emotion you can physically feel in your body.

You might want to believe you can accomplish your goal. But are you feeling the energy of that belief? Meanwhile, an old thought you aren't paying attention to may still be activated and creating emotion.

Tune in to your body. Notice how you feel. That gives you information about the thoughts that are active, including the ones you may not be consciously noticing.

Then ask yourself what emotion will help you do the hard thing in front of you. For me, it was determination, motivation, and excitement. Those require different thoughts than the ones that create peace, relaxation, or tenderness.

You can experience both. The question is whether you're creating the emotional fuel you need for the action you want to take.

If you don't feel determined, that doesn't mean you aren't a good person or a disciplined person. It means you aren't thinking thoughts that activate the emotion you need. Generate those thoughts, practice them, and notice the feeling they create.

Use thought work to move forward

Asking why you think a thought or why you haven't taken action can be useful. You can tell it's useful when it helps you change and create the result you want.

But sometimes we use thought work to keep looping instead of taking action. We keep investigating why we aren't doing the thing, and the investigation becomes a reason to keep not doing it.

Use the Model for yourself. Be aware of the emotions already there, and generate the emotional energy that helps you move.

Imagine your goal as a path through a jungle. Your brain makes noises from the jungle: criticism, doubts, reminders of mistakes. Sometimes you need to pull out a thought and work on it.

Other times, especially when you've already worked on those thoughts, you can hear the noise and keep walking. You don't have to stop for every familiar complaint and do another Model before you take the next step.

Be willing to do the boring work

Calendaring your day, recording consistently, or repeating the same workout may be boring. That doesn't make the work less valuable.

We can feel entitled to be entertained, as though the work should create interest and passion for us. But repeating the work is how we create the result and the strategic byproducts we want.

Look at your time, energy, and brain. What are you using them for? Your brain is like an employee. You get to decide what work to give it.

As you consider the actions you take, ask whether they move you toward long-term success or short-term pleasure. Decide how you want to define your life.

Long-term success is the best pleasure I've experienced. Let the work be hard. Generate the emotion you need, honor your word, and keep walking.