Blog # 1: Do the Hard Things to Make Your Life Easier

You are tired after a long day of school or work and tell yourself you can start your workouts tomorrow.  What’s one more day?  You are binge watching your favorite show as it gets later at night, and you tell yourself one more episode won’t hurt, even if it means an hour less sleep.  You are offered that second cupcake, and you know you have told yourself you would start eating less sugar, but what will one more hurt, right?  

You are avoiding having that difficult conversation with a friend because you are conflict averse and know you will have to get vulnerable and honest.  You know you have to study or work for a test or presentation tomorrow, but you are having so much fun playing video games, so you play a bit more. You know you told yourself you would do at least 5-10 minutes of meditation every day, but it is so uncomfortable to sit still with your thoughts as they jump around, so you end the session early.  

If you are human, I have a hunch some of these might sound familiar.  Do you notice what they all have in common?  What links them?  They are all asking you to do something hard instead of taking the easier route of less resistance.  Many of them are asking you to sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term benefit.  Now, I have struggled with every one of these myself; I have chosen the easier path many times as well, only to regret it later.  What I have come to realize, though, is the more I do the hard things, the easier and more comfortable my life becomes.

It is a paradox and might not seem like it should be true, but I promise you it is.  For example, when 2022 started a couple of my friends and some research had convinced me of the benefits of taking cold showers every day.  I vowed to start taking them in the new year.  For a while, every single day I had to literally force myself to get in there, force myself to feel some short-term pain for the long-term benefits I knew I was receiving (better mood, more energy, better immune system, better metabolism, etc).  Now, believe it or not, I actually look forward to my cold shower.  There is still that discomfort when I first get in, but it pales in comparison to the comfort I get from it in other ways.  It is hard to do, but it makes my life easier.  

Another example is doing my daily workout.  Many, many times I am not really in the mood.  But, I have decided just not to make it a choice.  It is something I do every day.  I take the decision aspect out of it.  It is hard to do that, but in the long run it makes my life easier and I feel better and more energized.  Just like flossing.  Do the annoying flossing now to avoid the long-term negative consequences later.  Same thing with eating.  There are many times that I fall short, but for the most part I try to choose more vegetables and fewer and fewer desserts.  That is hard for me to do, but it makes my life easier (more energy, fewer illnesses, fewer injuries, less inflammation and pain, etc).

Other examples might include getting enough sleep, committing to some sort of meditation, visualization, or practice of monitoring your thoughts.  Take sleep for example.  It is often easier to stay up to watch that extra episode or scroll through your phone, but doing the hard thing of forcing yourself to go to bed will make your life easier.  You will have more energy the next day to then do other hard things that will then make your life easier.  It is either a virtuous cycle (get sleep and have the energy to do other hard and beneficial things), or a vicious cycle (stay up and be too tired to do the hard things).  Same thing with meditation/visualization or some form of trying to change your thoughts to be more positive and less anxiety-producing.  It is often easier to allow your mind to jump around like a monkey and cause you worry or anxiety.  It is more difficult to make the conscious effort to slow your thoughts down, improve your focus, and purposefully choose to think more optimistically.  By doing that hard thing, though, your life will get easier.

On a similar note we often want to avoid having hard conversations, addressing a tricky issue, or doing the challenging thing of forgiving someone.  We avoid them and take the easier path of less resistance.  Our lives get harder by doing this, though.  If you do the hard thing of forgiving someone (within reason obviously), you are helping yourself and making your life easier.  You will not be carrying around that resentment.  If you do the hard thing of apologizing and making yourself vulnerable, your life and relationships will get better and flow more easily.  If you do the hard thing of telling someone you care about what you need, your life will improve.

So, next time you think you are too tired to work out, or want that other cookie, or don’t want to go to bed, or don’t want to have that hard conversation, just think about this: do you want to do the easy thing now and have a harder, less fulfilling life? Or can you get yourself to do the hard thing now so that your life can get easier and more gratifying?

You decide.