There is a movement encouraging people to know and use their strengths. In positive psychology, they focus on what is right with people and build on that. The idea being that our top strengths and talents are where our greatest potential lies. If we could fulfil that potential. Then that is where our greatest performance, successes and achievements lie.
This is the arena where we can be our best.
Then I watched a video by David Goggins (an ex-Navy seal). He suggested we should ignore our strengths and focus on our weaknesses. Using our strengths is comfortable, using our weaknesses is uncomfortable. We should get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is where true growth comes from. This is the arena where you have to face your fears, your inner demons, your dragon.
This is from where you can become a better person.
So how do we go about doing difficult and uncomfortable things?
Eating frogs
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Mark Twain
How many times at work have you had a difficult task to do? and how many times have you just put off dealing with it?
We have all done it. Then when we deal with it, it is not normally as bad as we thought.
I have been wanting to get fit again. Ideally, I would run, lift weights, practice yoga and train in martial arts. Anything after that is a bonus.
The problem is fitting it into modern family life. So I had to embrace the idea that to run and lift weights I would have to get up early and make it the first thing I do. So I have been building this habit up over the past 5 weeks.
The alarm goes off at 5:50 am. Ideally, I am outside the house doing some stretching by 6 am.
Getting up and going for a run at 6 am sucks.
There are no two ways about. Even after 5 weeks, getting up at 6 am to go for a run sucks.
It sucks, it’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, it’s pants, it’s horrendous, it’s difficult, it’s terrible, it’s tough. You might even say its character building.
But afterwards, I feel good. To do something difficult, that you don’t want to do, that you aren’t sure you can do and come out the other side feels great. There is satisfaction in doing something difficult. It sets a new bar of what you think you can achieve. It builds grit, it builds perseverance, it builds a steel mindedness.
And doing this as the first task of the day means everything else that day becomes that bit easier. It puts difficult things in perspective. You build resilience to difficult things.
You have a bad meeting at work, your boss gives you a hard time, you make a mistake in your monthly figures. These are still upsetting. But they don’t affect you as much when you have done something difficult that morning.
Prepare for battle
If you choose to do difficult things. You will face internal resistance. You can do things to reduce resistance. The 6 am doesn’t change and the run doesn’t change but there are other things you can change.
If you are going for a run then make sure you have your running kit out and ready the night before.
My shorts, T-shirt, socks and fleece have all been freshly washed and are drying on the back of the dining chairs. My trainers are out next to my running clothes. My earphones and iPhone armband are out on the table next to my clothes.
I also find getting changed in the bedroom is difficult. Trying to put your running clothes on (in the pitch black) without waking your wife or your two-year-old baby is hard. I prefer to go downstairs and put the kitchen light on and put my clothes on in the kitchen.
I find rock music motivational (especially at 6 am). So I put my music on as soon as I can. I then find it easier to do the stretching and the walking before starting the run.
Exposure theory
Remember it is 6 am. You woke up 10 minutes ago. You aren’t going to be setting any world records at 6 am. Not straight away anyway. Give yourself time for your body to warm up. Your mind to get in the zone. Then you can start to push yourself. You can build up the difficulty and intensity over time. Increase in small doses.
This is the same concept as in exposure therapy.
Exposure therapy is a technique used to treat anxiety disorders. You expose the patient to a very small dose of the fear-inducing stimulus. Once they become comfortable with that, you then increase the dose a small amount. Again, until they become comfortable. You keep going. They need to become comfortable with whatever amount of stimulus they need to cope with.
You could use public speaking as an example. Public speaking is most people’s number one fear. To face the fear, you could get a person to speak in front of one friend. Then get them to speak in front of two friends. Then get them to speak in front of three friends. They keep going until they are speaking in front of a room filled with 50 people. We could add in strangers to increase the stimulus further.
We build up the stimulus but also we build up the ability to deal with it. We build resilience.
We can do this with difficult things. Start small then build it up over a long time. Then we change. We become able to deal with very difficult things. Things we couldn’t have dreamt of doing before.
Lamppost theory
Running a marathon is a difficult thing. There is a concept that some marathon runners use and that is the lamppost theory. You don’t think about running the 26 miles. You think about running to the next lamppost. Once you achieve that lamppost, you only think of getting to the next lamppost. You keep repeating this cycle until you get to the end. You just focus on the next step, the next goal, the next milestone.
The same idea can be used for doing a difficult thing. Breaking it down into smaller pieces and doing one small piece at a time.
When I have been getting up to go for a run in the morning, I break it down into smaller steps. It starts with the alarm going off at 5:50 am.
Go to the toilet
Go downstairs
Put on my shorts
Put on my running top
Put on my socks
Put on my trainers
Put my iPhone in the armband
Plugin my earphones
Turn the music on and strap to my arm
Calf stretches
Hamstring stretches
Thigh stretches
Go outside
Calf stretches
Hamstring stretches
Thigh stretches
Walk to the post box at the edge of the estate
Start jogging lightly
Get to the sandwich shop
Get to the traffic lights
Get to the entrance to the farm
Turn round and back to the traffic lights
Do 10 hill sprints (using each sprint as a lamppost)
Walk to the bottom of the grass bank
Jog to the sandwich shop
Jog a little faster to the post box
Walk back to the house
One thing you will notice is all the small mini lampposts I have just to get me out of the house. It’s hard getting out of the house to go for a run. By having lots of mini lampposts helps me breakdown the size of the task into more manageable chunks. Each one is do-able.
Takeaways
When you do difficult things, you change. You build confidence, a faith, a determination that wasn’t there before. You build resilience to being uncomfortable.
If you do difficult things, do them first thing in the morning. You have then won the day. Everything after that is easy. That sense of achievement, of satisfaction, of strength, stays with you. It carries you through the rest of the day.
If you are doing difficult things, then get prepared. Do as many of the tasks as you can before the actual task itself. Get organised. Say, I got up to go for a run early in the morning. If I then had to find my trainers, shorts, T-shirt, armband and headphones. The run isn’t going to happen in the window of time I have. Remove as many obstacles as you can.
When doing difficult things, start small. Start small and keep doing it until you are comfortable with that. Then increase it. Then become comfortable with that. Keep repeating the cycle. You will be amazed at the difficult things you can manage to do overtime.
When doing difficult things, break it up into smaller steps. Concentrate on doing one step at a time. Concentrate on the next step, the next task, the next lamppost. Keep going until you get to the end.
Remember, when you do difficult things, it’s not the destination that changes you, it’s the journey.
Footnotes
Here is the David Goggins video that gave me the idea for this article
https://www.facebook.com/504956791/posts/10156012633601792?s=523467501&sfns=mo
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