“Every day, bite off a little bit more than you can chew, and chew it.” – Michael Singer
Welcome back 🙂
Let’s kick the week off with a quick and dirty lesson that can be summed up in nine powerful words:
Prove to yourself that you can do hard things.
If there is a simpler, more reliable way to build confidence (along with resilience, discipline, poise, pick a virtue) I’m have no idea what it is.
Confidence is nothing more than your ability to trust yourself, after all.
And those who trust in their ability to do hard things…
To take any punch, to push through any adversity, to bend without breaking…
…Have the rare type of confidence that never wavers, no matter how rocky life gets.
Of course, the only way to prove you can do hard things, is by — yes:
Actually doing hard things.
Not by talking about doing hard things.
Not by chanting affirmations that say you can do hard things.
Not by watching David Goggins rant and rave and guilt and shame you about doing hard things.
But by showing up and proving it:
By getting in the cold water.
By doing the extra set.
By pushing for five more minutes, then ten.
By taking on a project you genuinely don’t know how to do, and figure out how do it.
By fasting for a day, or three.
And, most importantly:
By shutting up, biting down, and digging in every time your mind complains that things are too hard.
I’m not saying you need to go sicko-mode 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
(learning how to be gentle with yourself is just as important as learning how to be tougher on yourself)
But a daily dose of difficulty is damn near mandatory for real inner development.
And here’s the magic bullet:
(tying this to last week’s series on dopamine)
If you can find the thread of pleasure in that difficulty…
The pleasure within the pain of those last few grinding reps in the gym…
The pleasure of knowing you did the right thing, when the wrong thing would have been easier…
The pleasure of overcoming the urge to quit, and pushing the limits of your will just a little bit further…
The pleasure of testing yourself to see what you’re really made of, and being proud of what you see…
…If you can find that thread of pleasure, you can train yourself to enjoy, or even crave doing hard things.
(ie. train your brain to use healthy difficulty as a source of dopamine)
And if there’s one common trait among those who do great things, it’s that they enjoy doing hard things.
So:
Prove to yourself that you can do hard things.
Today, tomorrow, and every day after that.
- T
P.S. One of the fundamental principles in our upcoming Self Design course is this:
We prove who we are to ourselves through our behaviours.
If you want to feel like a trustworthy and reliable person, tell the truth and keep your word.
If you want to feel like a kind and likeable person, be kind and actually like others.
(easier than it sounds — just find the thing you like about them and focus on that)
And if you want to feel like a tough, resilient person who can be trusted to stay in the pocket and fire back when the bullets are flying — yep:
Do hard things.
Behave like the person you want to be, and not only will you become that person — functionally, you are that person.
More on this coming soon…