How to Enjoy the Hard Parts

Do you enjoy the hard work, or only being done with it?

Those are different experiences.

Many of us enjoy having completed a workout, finished a project, or reached the top of a mountain. But if we only want the result, we may struggle to start.

I want to talk about enjoying the hard part itself: the challenge, the lifting, the work, and the process of becoming stronger.

Learning to enjoy that process is one of the things that helps me keep growing and creating.

A challenge can be an invitation

Think about someone who loves lifting weights.

My friend Alex Hormozi is a bodybuilder. When he sees heavy weights, he sees something exciting. He wants to find out what he can lift.

He goes into the gym believing he is strong. The challenge gives him an opportunity to exercise that strength and demonstrate it to himself.

I feel something similar about hiking up a mountain. I do not see the climb only as an obstacle between me and the view.

The climb is part of what I want to do.

But if you have not developed strength in an area, the same challenge can feel very different.

Do not mistake being new for not belonging

When you first walk into a gym, you may not be able to lift much.

You have not built the muscle yet. It may not feel enjoyable to discover how little you can do.

You might decide the room was made for strong people and walk right back out.

We do the same thing with building businesses, running, climbing mountains, and other goals. We encounter our current weakness and decide the activity is not for us.

But the way to become stronger is to do the challenging thing.

You have to be willing to be bad at it. You have to be willing to do it before you have developed the strength that will make it enjoyable.

Sometimes you have to not like the hard thing long enough to learn to like it.

Strength changes your experience

Years ago, I was walking with a friend who was also a client working on losing weight.

She told me she did not enjoy walking. It made her uncomfortable.

I asked whether she thought she would enjoy it if she were in my body, feeling strong and fit. She said she would.

That conversation helped me see that her current experience of walking was not necessarily the experience she would always have.

As we build strength, we can experience an activity differently.

The stronger we get, the more we may want another challenge: a bigger hill, a heavier weight, or a longer distance.

We want to see what we are made of.

Each next level can make you a beginner again

Getting stronger does not mean every future challenge will be easy.

When you add a new challenge, you may be weak at that new thing. You may not know whether you can do it.

But you know something you did not know before: how to turn weakness into strength.

You know how to try. You know the process can develop you whether or not that particular attempt succeeds.

That changes your relationship with the challenge.

You can approach it as a way to express and build your strength instead of treating uncertainty as a reason to avoid it.

Emotional strength develops through feeling

This applies to psychological challenges, too.

Showing up can put you in the way of shame, humiliation, sadness, grief, or rejection.

When you take on those challenges and practice processing the feelings, you develop the ability to experience them.

A client described a very difficult situation she had gone through. She had done a lot of work with her emotions and now felt stronger than ever.

She had the sense that if she could get through that, she could get through anything.

The experience that developed her strength was the one she did not yet feel strong enough to face.

She became stronger by going through it.

Avoiding effort can keep you from developing

I experienced this physically when I was not lifting weights.

I was thin, fit in my clothes, and did not think I needed to lift heavy things. I arranged life so I did not have to.

Then my doctor told me I needed more muscle tone.

I started lifting. I was sore, and it was hard. Over time, I developed strength.

Now lifting things in my daily life can be enjoyable because I can feel what I have built.

The same question applies psychologically. Are you organizing your life around avoiding challenges, or are you giving yourself opportunities to become stronger?

Choose a challenge that serves you

I am not suggesting taking on hard things and then beating yourself up over them.

I am suggesting doing hard things for your benefit, supporting yourself through them, and using them to grow.

What is the hardest challenge you could take on that would serve you at the highest level?

Is the challenge in front of you worthy of where you are now? Are you giving up too quickly, or returning to it knowing that the work is developing you?

I love an impossible goal because it asks me to change.

A goal may be impossible to the person I am today and possible to the person I become. I want to look at what I need to develop to make it possible.

Expect your brain to prefer the easy option

My brain regularly tells me I do not need to do more hard things.

I am already happy. I already have success. Why not just relax?

I understand the motivational triad. The survival brain wants to avoid pain and conserve energy.

It can feel natural to give up, hide, buffer, or complain. Supporting ourselves while we do challenging things asks more of us.

I want to notice those thoughts lovingly and continue choosing the growth I want.

There is a difference between wanting something and deciding to do it. Deciding includes being willing to meet the challenge that comes with it.

Enjoy getting to know yourself

One of my favorite parts of life is meeting myself in new ways.

I can put myself in a situation and see what I do. Do I resist? Do I crumble? Do I create?

I can notice my strengthening and learn more about what I am capable of.

The enjoyment is not only in arriving at a result. It is in showing up, growing, and experiencing myself through the process.

Observe your interaction with the hard things in your life. Notice whether you are committed to continuing to develop your strength.

Pick a challenge. Support yourself through it. Find enjoyment in the work and the growth it gives you.

We can learn more than how to do hard things. We can learn to enjoy doing them.