Do Something Hard

How comfortable is your life? Your day to day life, I mean. For many of us, I’d say our lives are rather comfortable: We wake up and get ready for the day, we go to work and put in our time, come home and have dinner, then settle in for an evening of reading, or binging a show before falling asleep to do it all over again tomorrow. Often, it feels like deciding what to eat for dinner is the hardest thing I do all day.

Some people develop grit when they’re young and they struggle through things in school. I was fortunate enough to have a rather easy time in school. Things came easily to me. I rarely needed to study. It was great, until I got older and was faced with actual challenges. Rather than dive into them, I did my best to avoid them. If I wasn’t good at it initially, I had no interest in continuing to do it.

That’s fine for some things. We don’t have to do everything that comes our way. I’m not great at organic chemistry? Fine, it’s honestly something that I won’t be likely to encounter in my daily life, and I won’t suffer from not learning it. Picking your battles is valid.

The problem was, I found myself stagnating. If I just do what I’m inherently pretty good at, how then do I grow? What is there to look forward to, besides just more of the same?

I still remember when this changed for me.

A therapist had recommended that I look into Ryan Holiday, thinking that Stoicism might resonate with me. It sounded good, so I signed up for his daily newsletter. In one of the very first emails I received, he talked about being like fire. When fire meets an obstacle, it either fizzles out, or it moves through that obstacle, consuming it and growing stronger. Be like fire. Meet the obstacle, and grow. It flipped a switch in my brain, and changed the way I meet challenges.

“The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.” -Marcus Aurelius

In an attempt to use the power of my phone for good, rather than mindless scrolling, I’ve been working to learn new languages. It’s something I really enjoy, and I jumped in to learn Spanish, which is commonly spoken in my town, and German, which I had started learning in high school and thought would be fun to tackle again. Learning any language is a challenge, but they were still somewhat familiar languages, since I hear Spanish all the time, and I had started German, which already shares some similarity to English.

I still wanted to learn both of these languages, but also felt called to try something completely out of my comfort zone. Though I knew there was a strong likelihood I wasn’t going to be needed to know Arabic anytime soon, I dove in. At first it was exciting: new sounds, new letters, reading right to left. After the initial rush, however, it got really hard and frustrating.

With the other two languages, the letters were familiar and I knew what sounds they made, and there were many words that sounded similar, or had a Latin root that I was able to make sense of. Not so with Arabic. With the exception of coffee (qahwa in Arabic), everything sounded completely different. I had to learn to make new sounds, some of which I am still not even close to being able to make. It’s such a struggle, but it’s also really satisfying. I’m finally able to speak some basic phrases, which feels amazing!

I work regularly as a substitute teacher at one high school in my area, and a new student started this year who speaks no English. Guess what language he does speak. That’s right, French! Just kidding, it’s Arabic. He had a pretty big smile when I told him, in Arabic, that I am learning to speak Arabic.

We really didn’t speak more than that, since he didn’t need to hear me tell him that the cat’s computer is old, or that the engineer’s newspaper is big (thanks for all the practical phrases Duolingo!). It did renew my enthusiasm though, in the hopes that next time I see him I might be able to ask him more about himself, or help him understand something in the classroom.

“Strength doesn’t come from what you can do; it comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.” — Rikki Rogers

When I started going to the gym, I would avoid the free weight areas whenever possible. I would use the machines for weight training because they felt safe- there aren’t too many ways to use the machines incorrectly, or to look silly using them (more so than anybody else anyhow). But, the free weight area was, to me, where the serious fitness folks worked out, and they knew what they were doing. I, however, did not.

At some point, I realized that I never would if I didn’t take it upon myself to go in there and just do it. Before I went to the gym the next time, I watched a couple of YouTube videos on some basic exercises that targeted a few key areas of the body, and when I went back, I just did it. It felt intimidating, and I felt certain that the other more experienced people were watching me and saying “Get a load of the weak newbie. What the hell is he even doing?”

But then I remembered that nobody really does that. Especially in there. A quick glance around made it clear that everybody was either looking at themselves in the mirror, or were too busy struggling to push and pull heavy weights.

And, if I was worried about looking silly, it couldn’t have been any sillier than the noises coming out of some of those people….

It was uncomfortable and challenging for me to walk in there, pick up those weights, and take up the space that I have every right to take up. It was hard, and it was worth it. There are some things I can’t do with the available machines, and I’m gaining muscle as a result of my willingness to get out of my comfort zone.

Consciously taking on challenges has made it easier to overcome the challenges that come uninvited. It has created a mindset that lets me meet challenges and grow, rather than shying away and shrinking. I don’t want my life to fizzle out, and I certainly don’t want it to fizzle out because I wasn’t bold enough to do the things I wasn’t comfortable doing.

This is the mindset that has allowed me to become a writer. I wasn’t before, but then I decided to overcome the challenge of writing my first article, and now I’m a writer. I’m also going back to school to get my teaching credential and master’s degree. Both are things that challenged me previously, and things I shrunk away from. Now, I understand the value of meeting the challenge, and I know how much I will grow as a result.

How can you challenge yourself?

Maybe for you it’s learning a new hobby. Learn to quilt, or build a box using only hand tools (learn to cut a dovetail!). Is baking scary for you? Find a recipe and get out the measuring cups. It doesn’t have to be something major. You don’t have to pick up and move to another continent. The little things matter, because it’s about shifting the way you think. Those small challenges prepare us for the bigger challenges.

You can do hard things!