You Can Do Hard Things – I Know This Because You’re Already Doing It!

Issue 30. July 7, 2023 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨

photo credit: Alexei Maridashvili

If you follow my writing, speaking or podcasting, it’s probably because you want your life to be better. That is, you want something (or things) to change in your life.

Trying to make changes in your lifelong habits is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. All the time. There wouldn’t be entire industries dedicated to helping people make changes, like the coaching, therapy and fitness industries if it were easy.

Perhaps you’ve been using the fact that it’s hard to change as a reason not to do it. It’s not.

If you’re living an unsatisfying or even miserable life, your life is hard. It’s hard to continue on, day after day, being miserable. But you’re doing it. And maybe you’ve been doing it for decades, even if you know it’s possible to have a better life. Or at least you know it’s possible for other people to have a joyful, satisfying life.

There you are, doing hard stuff every day. So I don’t buy it that you can’t do hard stuff. Change IS possible for you, even though it’s hard. I know that because you’re already doing hard stuff!

The thing about the hard stuff you’ve been doing is that it’s probably getting harder and more miserable. That hard shit is going to be endless – unless you make some changes.

However, if you do the “hard work” of making changes in your life (e.g., 12-step recovery, building healthy boundaries, going through therapy), that kind of hard stuff is finite. It’s only going to be hard for so long. It’s temporary. It gets easier the longer you work at it.

A huge bonus of the hard work you put into making changes to your long-standing patterns is that there’s healing on the other side. Your life gets better. And things get a lot easier. You’ll have a better life that’s a lot easier AND you get healing.

So stop telling yourself, “It’s too hard, I can’t do it.”

The hard work of behavior change is just a different kind of hard stuff and it’s the kind that’s unfamiliar to you.

Yes, it is hard to change your ways. It’s hard to let go of control, create healthy habits, look honestly at yourself and own up to the things you’ve done. It is hard to wade into uncharted territory.

But it’s also so rewarding. The hard stuff gets easier the more you do it, unlike the hard stuff you’re doing now if your life is unsatisfying or even miserable. That’s just going to keep getting worse!

The idea that something being hard is a legitimate reason for not doing it is just bullshit. If repeatedly telling yourself, “This is so hard” is stopping you from making changes, then stop telling yourself that!  
You can do hard stuff.

I love this quote from Winston Churchill.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

That is, don’t stop in the middle of hell. Keep going until you come out on the other side where things will be much easier.

Do the temporary hard stuff required to make changes in your life. Stop telling yourself you can’t do hard stuff, because you’re already doing it!