Today we are going to speak about something that most people do not want to pay any attention to and that is ‘doing the hard thing.’
There are many areas in life when it is best to ‘do the hard thing’ even though every cell in your body is screaming for you to do anything. However, here are some reasons why it is more than worthwhile to do the hard things in life.
1. Taking a stand for someone who is incapable of ‘being heard’ maybe because they are mentally ill, and won’t be heard even by their so-called psychiatrist or psychologist. Unfortunately, once someone is given the stigma of a mental illness, their voice is no longer heard – I know because I lived through this bullshit even after I had no symptoms of any mental illness for a number of years.
2. Elders can easily be scared into handing over their money to anyone who will ‘take care of them’ even if it is a horrible living situation. I know because I had to rescue my mom from such situations twice before she died. All the elder wants to know is that they have a safe place to live and the basic necessities will be taken care of since the person is no longer able to do this for themselves.
3. Youth, who are being treated in an abusive manner. Too often the are predictors about the family (not necessarily the family of origin though that can certainly happen as well) abusing the young child – many times in sexually inappropriate ways even before the kid is old enough to understand what sex even is, never mind making a decision on his/her own to be involved. Older kids can be manipulated into it by older and much stronger adults as well even if they know it’s wrong, they don’t know how to stop it. Many would say tell your parents, and I can tell you that many of my clients did just that to be blamed for being victimized further emotionally damaging the victim in the process.
4. Taking risks to try something new because you know it’s scary to do new things. However, it is only when one goes outside the ‘comfort zone’ that one learns more about both the greater world and one’s self. Taking risks and failing also builds resiliency because you realize that you are still standing and can continue forward with a new idea.
5. Taking a stand for yourself and what you believe is most important – never by defending yourself to a bunch of ‘smucks’ as my dad would refer to such people, but by holding firm in your beliefs and doing what you decided to do anyway. There are only two questions one has to ask oneself self if someone is giving you advice whether or not you asked for it: 1) Who is this person in my life? 2) Is this a person who I respect in regard to the situation at hand? If the answer is ‘no’ you keep quiet and move forward with your intended plan of action. Pay attention here: If you do not follow your own heart and soul, and listen to your own gut, you will never feel either any sort of confidence and worse never find true fulfillment in your life. It is never up to someone else to tell you what you should be doing or how – meaning what you put your life’s energy and emotions into – that is your choice and yours alone. Yes, we can most certainly seek guidance, just make sure that you find the correct guide for you. One who will allow you to do what you so choose and guide you to success in that pursuit – so someone who has successfully accomplished what you want to do. In NLP we call this ‘modeling excellence.’ In fact in Tad James’s NLP courses – that is the answer to the test question as to what NLP is so it is an important concept to understand as we make our way through life.
6. Take those scary opportunities to travel to new places, and advance in your career – because, one can easily turn that feeling of being scared into that of ‘excitement.’ It is just a matter of having the butterflies in your stomach fly in formation. Physiologically speaking both these emotions feel the same in the gut, so turn it from a negative label to a positive one, and you are set to go. This is in fact what the major sports and entertainment figures do every day to do their jobs as successfully as the successful ones do.
7. Fail fast: This was already brought up before, but it is so important that it deserves its own listing Look, how are you ever going to know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t give a thing a shot? You can’t and worse you are not allowing yourself to build self-confidence by learning what you can do and what you can overcome in the process as well as denying yourself this ability to be resilient in the face of adversity.
Learning: By doing ‘the hard thing’ you are building up your sense of self-integrity because you took a stand when you saw fit to help another being get treated correctly. Was it fun? Probably not. Was it worth it? Hell, yes every single time. By taking risks we learn what works and what doesn’t and in so doing we are able to build self-confidence and resiliency – both very important in being able to be a productive and happy person.
