The too hard basket.
It’s in our evolutionary DNA to seek easier. Our evolutionary survival triangle is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, conserve energy with minimal effort (as easy as possible). Our horse’s survival DNA has these traits also, it actually helps us train them. We provide food, make their lives comfortable, for the most part ask little with regards to effort/energy in return. When we train, we add a little pressure to motivate them to try different ways of avoiding the pressure (pain), we they try something close to the response we want we take the pressure away and reward with a scratch, rub or something and the easier and quicker they learn it the less effort. Have you ever noticed how much harder it is when you try to train a horse who is nappy because he resists moving forward, how they make it harder for themselves and us when they choose resistance rather than learning.
This is what we do to ourselves. One of the sentences many of us tell ourselves is “it’s too hard’. As we grow up and get socialized via family, friends, tv, school etc, it is suggested to us that if people find something easy, they are somehow gifted. That “easy’ is something to be admired, to be desired and we are already hard wired to want things to be as easy as possible. In the process we learn to think that if something is “hard” it must mean something about us, that we are “stupid” or “not good enough”, often hearing people say “it just shouldn’t be that hard’ like something being hard is a problem.
Adding to that, growing up in school the end result was admired regardless of how much effort was required to achieve it, in fact it didn’t matter how much effort was made if you didn’t get the required result. Most of us were taught that effort meant nothing if we didn’t get at least a ‘B’. So, if we tried really hard and still only got a ‘C’ we were criticise and eventually after time we would stop even trying because our effort meant nothing, ever noticed how horses do this is they try, try, try and there is no release of pressure. They stop trying or they shut down. There was no release because the person training the horse wasn’t rewarding the try, they were only focused on the result.
This type of thinking impacts our willingness to keep trying, it stops us from believing in ourselves. Hard is undesirable, it does not feel great, so you have to reward the try, any effort made, this is what allows you to keep going. If you have ever had the benefit of achieving a goal that was hard, like saving to purchase a first car, or building a business from scratch, maybe training for the Coast to Coast, it is so worth the effort, there is way more reward and satisfaction in achieving from hard than from easy. There are other benefits too, in doing something we have never done before we have to evolve into a version of ourselves, we haven’t been before. We learn to trust ourselves, gain resilience and skills that support every area of our lives. To achieve anything that is hard requires us to uplevel ourselves, to change and evolve as an individual.
I’m not suggesting we want life to be hard in all areas or all the time, what we want is to challenge ourselves with a goal that feels hard or maybe even impossible in at least one or two areas of our lives and intermix it with a bit of pleasure as a reward for our efforts in our day to day. We could also look to work on a hard challenge and make that as fun and as pleasurable as possible. If your reason for doing it (your “why”) is good it is no problem to keep going, especially if you reward yourself with complimentary self-talk and other kindness during the process. When you achieve your result, it feels amazing, and you want to repeat it.
However, as humans we tend to make ‘hard’ harder than it needs to be. How do we make ‘hard’ harder, here’s an example: We start working towards our dream goal on a daily basis and it is hard, physically, mentally, emotionally. It is a big commitment in terms of time, money, energy. We could accept all these things and remind ourselves that we chose it, look to embrace the journey of it and show ourselves kindness and compassion through the process, it’s hard that’s it. Or, we can complain, resent, wish things were different, and when we do that, it just makes it all so much harder, now we a climbing a mountain, feeling exhausted, why would you want to keep going. We can criticise and judge ourselves, put ourselves under constant pressure. Even with a good ‘why’ you are more likely to give up and if you don’t give up, by the time you achieve your goal you are burnt out and over it, so there is little pleasure in the journey or the result, you don’t ever want to repeat it, so you become a one-time wonder.
I’ve known many people who have stopped trying because of the way they treat themselves and keep trying some version of the same thing, which is still trying the same thing and expecting a different result, it just doesn’t work. To get a different result you have to try something different and like horses it helps if you have someone who understands and can provide information and guidance that supports and rewards effort.
Our future is always the result of our day-to-day experience and decision making, and this is something we control whether we like it or not, consciously, or unconsciously is up to us. Consciously from the person we want to be as an adult, unconsciously from the current version of who we are based on beliefs and experiences given to us as children.
No one achieves or grows from a place of comfort, most people who achieve hard things don’t spend much time on a couch.
Have a brilliant New Year everyone, make 2023 the year you embrace the discomfort of hard and reap the rewards of the challenge.
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