As much as I don’t want to, sometimes you just have to do HARD THINGS. Uncomfortable things, painful things, things you don’t feel capable of, fearful things.
Why do we have to do them, and when should we not do them?
I’m doing a lot of them recently, and have been doing so this year. And yet, there are also things that I’m deciding not to do, which perhaps I probably “should” do, that if I did them, would also be good for me: grow me, connect me, lead to some kind of positive outcome. So, why do we need to stretch ourselves to do the hard things, when we really don’t want to, and when is it OK to just not do them, and not be in the realm of just making excuses for ourselves? It’s a tricky line to walk.
When the value-based reason/s for doing it, the higher purpose, outweighs the fear and/or pain of doing it: when the “work” is more important than the fear. If you don’t know and understand the bones of this equation for yourself, then it will lead to a lot of indecision and angst as you try and decide whether to do something that feels hard or just get out of it. It’s easy to make excuses for the hard things, because most of your Being will not want to do them and your unconscious mind will be a genius at coming up with legitimate reasons not to. If we never see past his dynamic and rise above it, we stay stuck. If we stay stuck and don’t do things to stretch and grow, we don’t evolve. This goes against your brain’s natural wiring, which wants to goal set and achieve, and one might say it also goes against your spiritual wiring, of the basic need to expand, as the physical universe is designed to always be expanding. Going counter to this is going counter to our true nature. It doesn’t mean you have to be stretching and evolving and growing ALL THE TIME – times of just cruising and enjoying your life with no real stretch are necessary! But if we don’t consciously practise the hard thing, when life throws a situation at us that absolutely REQUIRES us to swim in the deep end, then those times can be make or break. In other words, new or challenging situations will happen that require us to respond differently and get though them (think: having a baby; the death of a loved one and learning to live without them; a new job that throws you in the deep end). In other words, as well as the growth, thriving and confidence that’s available to us by having these experiences, there’s also the resilience to be built, which absolutely serves us by then being available to us when we really need it: If we’ve done hard things before, we will be able to do them again.
“Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“If you’re willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you’re willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy”
– T. Harv Eker
There’s a big difference between personal values and actual capability: a difference between the confines of trauma and learned helplessness, and your intentions. For example, there are some things you’re simply not capable of doing: the example that spiritual leader Eckhart Tolle gives, is that he’ll never be a professional basketball player, because he’s too old and simply not tall enough! However if you get so much JOY out of playing basketball, then you could do it. However, if you’re psychologically limited because you’re sitting in unresolved trauma, this can lead to something called “learned helplessness”. It means that you’re very CAPABLE of doing certain things, but you don’t BELIEVE you can do them, even simple things, which then causes you to do very little, and therefore not get any real-time and accurate feedback about your capabilities. Obviously, this leads to an extreme lack of confidence, and the cycle keeps you stuck.
However, you can have INTENTIONS. And set very small and realistic goals for stretching yourself, relatively speaking.
Some examples from my own personal life at the moment. In February this year (2024) I attended a writer’s retreat weekend for the first time. Having not been to one before I had no idea what to expect. However, that’s not what made this situation special. The day before we were due to go I had a bit of a cataclysmic bomb dropped on me. I won’t go into detail, but it was huge and I didn’t sleep much that night. With the majority of the fibres of my being – not all fibres of my being – it became obvious to me) all I wanted to do on the Friday evening was curl up in bed and feel sorry for myself. In fact, I could have even just skipped the Friday introductory evening and attended the weekend anyway. Yet, those few fibres of my being felt pulled to go. I let my friend and colleague know I was in a bit of a state and she was feeling nervous and sleep deprived also for different reasons, and we agreed to look after each other. The evening ended up being profound and set the course of direction for me for the weekend. In fact, the weekend itself was profound and probably changed my life. Some part of me knew that the value outweighed the fear/pain.
I’m currently seeing my own therapist, and he had a different model for working than what I’ve been trained in and become used to. It’s not comfortable for me, and although I’ve engaged in short periods of it in the past to get through acute stress (post-natal anxiety for example) I’ve always found reasons to avoid it. In fact, I’d be OK if I wasn’t doing it now. Yet, what we are working on, and how we are doing it, I know is 100% important for me to do, and it’s something I’ve learned I can’t do in any other manner. I try and think of ways of getting out of it every time, believe me! Yet: it’s known to me that the value of the work outweighs the discomfort of it.
I’ve recently committed to a six month programme with a business strategist. It’s not cheap, it’s a huge commitment and the doubts have been FLYING. There’s a million reasons not to do this! And there’s a lot of excuses flying around too. Again, I’m fine without it, there’s not a huge problem to solve. Yet, I also know, in a part of me, that there are things I want to do, messages I need to get out, projects I care about, people to reach, and that being able to “know” how to do all this alone is something I’ve realised is a fallacy. I’ve been in business for 18 years and most of that I’ve worked out by myself. It’s time to partner up and scale up! Again: the value of this outweighs the fears and doubts. It’s going to require me to trust and dig deep and I might well doubt it the whole way through, and yet my eye is on the prize which I know will be worth it.
When not to do it, then? Quite simply this requires you to know what’s important to you. Without this, your criteria will be wobbly. This is a reason to get clearer on your values. Do you know what they – actually – are? Do you want to?
With love,
Charlotte.