When You Know How To Do The Hard Things, Everything Else Becomes Easy

You know what’s hard? getting up at 4 am because you made a commitment.

Do you know what’s easy? Staying up late the night before watching Netflix until midnight.

Do you see how those two things are connected, and by doing the easy thing you make the hard thing that much harder? But. Did you know that when you focus on doing the hard things, over and over again, it makes everything else seem easy?

And when I say hard, I don’t really mean getting up at 4 am. I mean things that are actually hard, like starting a business, growing an audience, writing a book, raising a family, or doing a Misogi challenge.

WTF is a Misogi challenge? It is the Japanese tradition of doing something so hard that it makes everything else seem trivial. Like standing under a freezing waterfall for hours on end.

You can think about it in your own context. Like walking naked through the snow for miles, without shoes. Or writing 4 hours each night for a week straight. Or cold calling 100 people nonstop for 12 hours straight.

Do those things and the next time you have to walk through the snow wearing warm boots and a coat it will seem easy. The next time you need to write an email or letter it will seem easy. The next time you have to make a cold call, it will seem easy.

How To Frame Your Perspective

You see, it is all about how you frame your perspective. The first time you do something outside of your comfort level, it may seem hard. but, I’ll share a secret with you.

Your efforts compound over time and with repetition.

Let me repeat.

Your efforts compound over time and with repetition.

Do a hard thing 5 times and you start getting the hang of it. Do it 20 times and it becomes simple. Do it 100, or 1000 times and it becomes second nature and you don’t even think about it being hard.

Do enough different hard things, and it will make other hard things seem easy too. I shared a brief bit of my life story in a couple of threads on Twitter this week, and it helped me to reflect on a trait I developed along the way somewhere.

Things just aren’t hard anymore.

I lived in the wilderness and had to chop wood for weeks to keep myself warm all winter. I had to get up in the middle of the night every night to stoke the fire so the pipes didn’t freeze, I had to poop outside for a month in negative 20 when the pipes did freeze one year. (yes, seriously)

I’ve slept on the ground in a bivy bag under a tarp for hundreds of nights. I have eaten a restricted diet of whatever I could carry in my backpack for 2 weeks. I have been snowed in and isolated without communication for months on end.

All of those things were amazing at the time. And yes, some of them were a little hard at times too. But, you know what? Next time the power goes out in a big storm, it is not a big deal. Next time my dinner doesn’t come out quite right, it is not a big deal, if a hotel bed is uncomfortable, it is not a big deal.

It is all about perspective.

That is it for this week’s newsletter. Next week will be full of collaboration with other creators again. I got a bit of a throat bug last weekend and have been playing catch-up all week.

But, you know what? I’ve been sicker. And I will probably get sick again sometime. And, it isn’t that hard to deal with.

And with that, I will leave you with a thought I have had while I have been under the weather.