Doing Hard Things Helps You Do Other Hard Things

By Amy E. Barr at The Lukeion Project

You may have seen those shows in which a dangerously overweight and unhealthy person enjoys a total life transformation by changing unhealthy habits and adding vigorous exercise to their daily schedule. Producers love to show our “contestants” lumber and labor during their very first workout, barely skirting the edge of giving up on the whole project before it has barely begun. The star of the show starts by barely climbing a set of stairs or struggling across a beach with weights. Usually, that first work-out ends in tears and an affirmation that change is needed. Successful participants double efforts and dig-in for the long haul.

Very few of us do not need this sort of eye-opener in our lives. For many of us the issue really is weight or poor diet. For others, the struggle is personal and unique. Maybe our challenge is finishing a degree, educating a child, getting a promotion, buying a house, helping a sick loved on. Each of us must start our transformation by doing that first hard thing and deciding to double down and push through instead of quit.

As an educator, I deal with challenges of the mind first, but challenges of the body play a major role as well. My experiences of almost 20 years of teaching tell me that physical challenges are more easily overcome than mental barriers. I’ll explain a few examples.

My classes are synchronous and online, a format that facilitates a wide selection of people who struggle with what all of us would label as serious adversity: financial, physical, mental, even social. I have also had students who believe they are struggling through adversity in a form that most others would consider a “mild inconvenience,” if anything. To everyone, starting point barriers FEEL difficult to overcome. Our outlook is limited by experience. The first step (whatever it is) is always the most difficult!

Those who come to my class having experienced, survived, and overcome massive adversity (quadriplegia, professional careers at a very young age, house fires, loss of a parent, cancer, concussions, etc.) always (98% of the time) do very well in difficult subjects. Rather than assume that clever and determined people are cursed by extra challenges, look at it in reverse. Challenges make one clever and determined if one allows them to.

I am not suggesting you should go out looking for a major setback just so you will perform better in tough academic subjects. The mechanism in place here is simpler than that. To anyone who has already endured and successfully overcome that “first workout,” all other challenges diminish in difficulty day by day. Doing hard things helps you do other hard things.

As parents and educators, we must keep the bar high for this reason. Continually raise the challenge level rather than pave a smoother path. Each time one of us overcomes and perseveres, we feel strengthened to overcome even more. We can look and marvel at a person who has succeeded against all odds. We can stand amazed as they come down from the highest mountain or as they succeed despite so many obstacles. They have simply finished all their “first workouts” and are ready for the transformative success that comes through experience. Allow your challenges to build you into a person who can do hard things.