What if hard things aren't really that hard at all?
Read on to find out what's responsible for most of our discomfort around 'hard things'.
Welcome to the weekly free post from Something More. If you’re new here, I’m Caroline Ferguson – mindset trainer, therapist and your companion on this trail through the wild lands of mindset, personal leadership and exploring a life that matters. I share candid experiences and provide tips to help bring a little order to the glorious chaos of being human.
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Have you come across the ‘I do hard things’ meme?
You can even buy T-shirts sporting the catchphrase.
Sadly life doesn’t pat us on the back every time we tackle the tough stuff. We don’t get medals for every-day efforts, no matter how hard they might feel.
‘Hard’ in this context tends to have negative associations for us cognitively, emotionally or physically, on a scale from mildly challenging to almost unbearable.
Hard is also subjective.
What feels difficult for me – doing my annual accounts, for example (before I did the sensible thing and outsourced them) – may be easy and flowy for you. Coming up with a utility room layout for our soon-to-be new home left my Mum frustrated and flummoxed, while for me it was like play-time as I joyfully sketched out various alternatives.
This subjectivity means there’s no common scale for perceived difficulty, although I think most people would agree that some experiences, such as dealing with physical or mental pain, or mourning the passing of someone we love, are universally difficult.
When things felt hard for me, I put off doing them.
I used to believe (with plenty of evidence, to be fair) that I would always be a rampant procrastinator when it came to things I deemed were difficult or unpleasant. It’s just how I’m wired, I told myself.
And then I learned about neuroplasticity – the beautiful ability our central nervous systems have to grow new connections and weaken old ones.
My curiosity was piqued, though at a subterranean level I assumed being neuroplastic was something other people’s brains could do, not mine. My unconscious belief was that I was fully (and flawfully) ‘done’ and that it wasn’t possible for me to change the fundamentals of who I was.
Therapy training, taught me how to identify and observe the core beliefs that were driving my everyday reality. At the same time, the notion that self-awareness is the greatest life skill was gradually filtering through.
What I discovered about myself came as a bit of a shock.
It was a real wake-up call to realise the extent of my avoidance of hard stuff – and bloody annoying to see the rotten consequences of all that procrastination:
so many opportunities squandered
huge amounts of time-wasting, followed by the sickening scramble to catch up
heaps of anxiety, guilt and shame
the dread of waiting to be found out
constantly feeling that life was hard.
Talk about unconscious self-sabotage and lack of self-leadership!
I started questioning everything I’d believed was ‘my truth’.
Each time I ran into an old, familiar ‘it’s so hard’ feeling, instead of getting side-tracked by the badness of it, I looked inward to identify the real stories. And here’s what I found:
They were exactly that. Stories. Opinions. Assumptions. Judgements. Beliefs.
Not facts. Not reality. Not actually ‘my truth’ at all.
Was it possible that, by adjusting my beliefs around discomfort and hard things, I might be able to rewire my mind after all? That I could be capable of neuroplasticity?
For the first time I truly got it.
Finally I understood that if I could learn to tune in and hear what was going on in my head, then I could challenge those ‘It’s so hard’ stories. With the right guidance and effort, I could learn how to build better, more helpful beliefs that would help me get out of my way and make life easier.
Best of all, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to let go of my rampant procrastination and other self-sabotage habits. By deliberately tuning in, then making different choices, I could become my own ally and leader. I could upgrade my daily experience of life, making it more successful, more pleasurable and more impactful.
And only I – no-one else – would have the power to decide whether something was hard for me or not.
All change
Over the next few years I focused on observing and understanding as much as I could about the inner cognitive, emotional and behavioural workings of myself, my clients and the people around me.
I created tools out of the learnings from my therapy training and my own relentless curiosity. Where there were gaps and I couldn’t find what I needed, I created or adapted pieces. I experimented until I discovered what worked.
In time this led me to create a suite of deceptively simple mindset training tools, such as PACES (the 5 main ways in which we self sabotage) and the Three Empowering Questions that can unstick us in any situation. I also came up with useful metaphors such as the emotional ladder and bucket of tolerance, which I later found parallels with in the work of others.
Thanks to these efforts, ‘It’s just the way I am’ is an excuse I don’t need to use any more.
What to do when something feels too hard
Try this exercise to help you shift your perception of difficulty:
1️⃣ When you bump up against that disagreeable feeling of unpleasant anticipation, find a quiet moment for yourself.
Focus on breathing calmly and slowly, and sit with your discomfort. Where in your body do you feel it? Try to observe it without judging yourself.
2️⃣ Now ask yourself the world’s most important question (number 1 of my 3 Empowering Questions):
What’s the story I’m telling myself about the situation that’s leading me to feel like this?
Listen to what comes into your head:
It’s too boring… or fiddly… or complicated… or technical... I’m not good at it... It’ll take so much time and/or effort… I don’t have the concentration… It’s scary... It’s embarrassing… I can’t handle it physically… I won’t have a good time… I’ll let people down… It’ll take all my energy and stamina... I’ll fail… They won’t like me… I don’t know how it will turn out… It’ll be emotionally or physically painful… It’ll go on and on with no end in sight… I’m too busy to think about it… It’s overwhelming…
With stories like that, no wonder the task or event feels difficult!
3️⃣ Once you’ve identified the main stories that are generating the ‘hard’ feeling, challenge them with questions like:
Who says it’s hard?
What evidence is there to support that opinion?
Would everyone think this is hard?
Just because I judge it as hard, does it necessarily mean it has to be hard?
What would it be like if I didn’t think it was hard?
What if I encouraged myself instead of feeling bad about it?
What feeling would be more helpful?
What’s stopping me from feeling that way?
What more constructive story can I use instead of this one that’s making it hard?
How will I feel when it’s done, and done quickly and with enthusiasm?
What am I going to commit to thinking, feeling and doing?
4️⃣ Now observe what’s going on in your mind. Have your feelings towards the task or event shifted at all? How do you feel about your ability to handle it now, compared to a few minutes ago?
The more you practise this type of self-observation, the better you’ll get at spotting your own self-sabotaging belief habits.
And the more you challenge the stories that are pinning those negative feelings in place, the easier you’ll find it to edit your unhelpful beliefs into more creative, practical and productive stories.
Best of all, it’s a fantastic way to build the number one life skill of self-awareness.
I’d love to know how you get on with this exercise.
Please feel free to share in the comments what works and doesn’t work for you, and what other ways you use to keep moving forward when something feels too hard.
Take care and see you soon.
