How you may be making your life harder by trying to avoid the “hard”.

I used to avoid “hard” from the moment I wake up. I mean, who wants “hard?” No thank you! I used to think I could avoid “hard” first thing in the morning by simply sleeping right through it, but who was I kidding? Closing my eyes and not moving as I listen to the kids fight over hair gel, socks, lunch snacks, and who took too long in the shower does not constitute sleeping. By the time I “woke up” I was in a terrible mood because I didn’t get the sleep I hoped for, and now I was in a rush to get the kids out the door.   Yep, I made my life harder by avoiding the “hard”. 

What are you avoiding because it is too hard?  That health challenge you’ve been invited to join for the 100th time?  Yeah, you should definitely avoid anything with the word “challenge” in it. That is a dead giveaway. 

But isn’t it true?  Trying something that may require us to stretch and bring us out of our comfort zone can be a scary thing.  Unfortunately, if we’ve ever decided to explore becoming something more than we are now… If we’ve ever asked, “What is my purpose, meaning, mission, potential in life?”  Well, don’t even bother asking that question if you don’t like “hard” because the answer WILL BE something hard about, umm yeah, 100% of the time.

So what is it?  What are you putting off until tomorrow again and again because it is just too hard today? Why do we choose to stay where we are over and over again?

I think part of it is because we don’t realize that staying right where we are is just as hard if not harder than taking a step forward.  That is often because we’ve already decided that taking a step forward will lead to the imminent failure we have already visualized in our minds.

Last week I gave 10 questions we can ask ourselves to figure out if we are on the right path or need more direction. It can be exciting to feel inspired to go in a certain direction in our lives but what about actually moving?  How much good is left undone because of fear of the unknown or worry that “it will just be too hard?” 

Can you tell I’ve been in that place many times before?  

From experience I can tell you, the only thing worse than the “hard” that comes from pursuing our dreams is the mental anguish that comes from sitting around and doing nothing except imaging how hard it will be if we actually act.  We go through everything in our minds but never produce a thing.

What we think hard is:

The trial and error of trying to achieve our dreams.

What hard really is:

Doubting and feeling down on ourselves because we haven’t done anything.  Looking back and realizing we’ve been standing still when we could have already made it to our destination. 

It was when I was in this exact anguish over something I was afraid to do that the following words came to my mind and the absurdity of how I was living finally occurred to me.

“Amber, either path you choose is going to be hard; the only difference is one path will lead to sorrow and the other joy. So what would you rather have?  If you are going to go through hard things you may as well end up somewhere worth while!!”

With these words came clarity to help me see everything I was thinking and doing that had landed me in this paralyzing mindset.  I’ll share them so maybe you can avoid some of my mistakes or just be grateful you aren’t as whack as I am!

Paralyzing Mindsets

• I wanted ALL the answers before taking action.
• I wanted someone else to give me the recipe to my success instead of trusting in my own unique path and purpose.
• I spent too much time watching and envying others and getting down because I’d never be like them.
• I spent so much time in thought I actually convinced myself I was doing something when all I was doing was thinking about what I could do.
• My thoughts got so big and overwhelming I lost sight of the small and simple things that would make everything possible.
• I visualized failing and being overwhelmed instead of the opposite.
• Everything felt like another dreadful check box on my to do list instead of something exciting and wonderful that could produce joyful results.
• I would say I believed in Gods strength and power in my life but I didn’t ACT like I believed.
• I forgot about my unique gifts and abilities and how I could use them to bless others.

All these things got worse the longer I waited to take action. Finally seeing them clearly helped me overcome them. Still, everyday I have to wake up, convince myself hard is good, and get to work already!

One of my favorite movie quotes ever says it perfectly. In A League of Their Own, Dottie (Gina Davis) decides to quit the team and Jimmy (Tom Hanks) tries to talk her out of it. 

Her reason for quitting…  “It just got too hard.”

His reply….  “It’s supposed to be hard.  If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it.  The hard is what makes it great!”

He was exactly right. I bet if we all look back to the “greatest” lessons, growth, accomplishment in our lives we would see that they were also the hardest.  

Which path will you take? 

Path#1 = Hard 

Path #2 = Hard (but we are deceived into thinking it is easy).

Path #1 leads to you becoming who you were designed to be. 

Path #2 Leads to a life of trying to avoid the adversity that will lead to growth and joy.   

Remember the worst kind of adversity is the one that lives inside us because we never had the courage to just DO.    Which “hard” will you choose?