Hard is Hard

Hard is hard. Change is hard. Moving forward or through something is hard. Growth is hard. High performance is hard. Of course it is. If it wasn’t we would all be doing this all of the time. I believe that we want to do all of these things, however, it may look to you, but…excuses are not as hard. They can be the veil that covers our minds granting us infinite stagnancy. They can block our dreams or our progress and can become comfort. This will not fulfill us. It simply will not. However, staying stagnant is an option but it is not as hard.

Reflection is hot on the heels of hard. In fact, I believe it is hard’s shadow. It opens us up to vulnerability and can make us feel inadequate or attacked. This is very hard. We are so tough on ourselves. We sometimes forget to notice how we showed up previously and give ourselves enough grace to reflect, notice, and then learn. However, reflection is necessary for growth. It is imperative to ask questions and to be able to answer them your way. It might make us feel uncomfortable but if we shift our lens, it also gets us talking and thinking about the work we are doing and how it reveals itself to others. It is difficult to see the good that cognitive and mediative questioning can do for us in the moment. To notice and name our learning and growth can be the most effective tool for taking steps towards our goals. For the person who is asking the questions, this is also a part of their growth as a leader. The questioner is learning how to offer feedback in order to feed back information to the learner for processing rather than telling them to do it their way. It is difficult for the observer to ask the most impactful question that nudges the learner to discovering the next right step. However, all parties are so much better because of it. The realization of growth might show itself before, during, or after we come out of the other side of the conversation.

Choice is hard. We have a choice to take our interactions throughout the day as positive or negative. The choice is ours with how we will take the next step. Will we wallow? Will we take a breath and retreat for a little while? Will we rise after that pause? Will we reflect? Will we seek someone out to complain to or seek advice? Will we appreciate? Will we grow or stay the same? We all can wallow at times. We can do all the things that we know are not good for us. Giving ourselves some grace can be the key to pulling ourselves out of the wallow and back into the game. Grace can also allow us to also be kinder to ourselves. We will get stronger because we are learning to take longer breaths, retreat to reflect, and notice the purpose for the hard things. This is still hard but it is worth it. Hard doesn’t have to be a negative thing.

Grit is what we need to dig up from the depths of our being in order to keep pushing through the hard stuff. If we give up when it gets too hard, we just won’t be fulfilled. That is what is the most important – that we feel we are doing what we are meant to do. Pushing through the tough stuff feels uncomfortable and agonizing at times. It can feel like we are wrong or not doing the right thing. However, often, once we get to the other side we do feel like we learned or moved forward in some small way. We will feel better that we tried rather than turned away from the challenge. It may not always turn out the way we hoped but it pushed us. That can often be enough to make us take one more step on our own journey. Just plan and know that this will all be hard.