Six Reasons Why Doing Hard Things Is Good for the Soul
The hard things are often the right things
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In 5 Simple Lessons from My Super Slow Weight Loss this Year, I walked you through my meandering weight loss journey. I revealed the diet plan that yielded the best results. If you paid attention, you realized I was successful with this plan in the past, but it was the last one I tried this time. I didn’t want to do hard things.
Remote Controls Made Me Fat and Lazy
I blame it on our culture. Everything is calibrated to make our lives easier. I’m happy dad finally bought a television with a remote control because I was his remote. But the TV remote was the tipping point. Now our lives run on remote controls without remote controls. “Hey Google, turn on my poolside lighting.” I wanted a weight loss plan designed with the same specs in which culture has shaped my expectations. But this mindset made me fat.
I struggled for four months in the wilderness, clawing for an easy way to shed 20 years of an expanding waistline. The answer hovered like a nagging fly I kept swatting away. My stupidity spurred a great deal of self-reflection on the concept of doing hard things, and I have six reasons why doing hard things is good for the soul.
1 — Doing Hard Things Puts You in an Elite Class
Only 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions keep and achieve them. Ninety-two percent can’t do hard things. A Harvard MBA study showed that 3% of Harvard MBAs made ten times more money than the other 97% combined. Why?
The 3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them.
Setting and tackling goals require moving through them no matter how you feel. You get up when the alarm clock rings at 5 am and go jogging. And you do it every day. People who allow their moods to dictate daily activity live by the Hedonic principle — they do what feels good and avoid what feels bad. They experience diet amnesia and eat the Krispy Kreme doughnuts when their sinful spouse brings them home.
Elevate yourself. Do hard things.
