Not difficult, but different
Reframing challenges to unlock our potential
There are many of us who really enjoy a challenge—who like learning new things and pushing ourselves because we know that growth and opportunity are found on the edge. But too often, either through words or action, we see folks give up on dreams they have because they limit themselves to the belief that it is ‘too hard.’ And to be honest, as much as I am aware of the limits of this mentality—I’ve definitely fallen victim to it, and sometimes still stumble around it; but I have learned to become aware of it and reframe my perspective. And that’s what I want to share with you today.
In this case, the ‘hard things’ I’m referring to are things like starting a business, writing a blog, publishing or exposing your work, signing up for an endurance event or even personal challenges like exercising more or moderating habits of consumption to improve your wellbeing.
Most of us will deal with real hardships in our lives, definitely; but what if we changed our minds about most of the other ‘difficult’ things so that we could achieve a little more? What if we could be more creative?
I think we all have things within us that are worth exploring. Creative acts that need to be expressed, whether its creating artwork, starting a business, or being creative with your body and habits to improve your body vessel. I think our power lies in our creativity, and our willingness to approach things with an open mindset.
Which is why today I want to propose that rather than thinking things are hard or difficult, we should remind ourselves that actually those things are just different. Different, not difficult.
It could be that we’re doing something that is a little different than the norm or what’s expected of us by others, so it makes us a little uncomfortable.
Maybe we need to take actions that are different from our normal, automatic habits and conditioning; and we need to work on self-control and the decisions we make.
Or maybe we’re approaching something we haven’t done before, so it is different to us. It could be something others have done a hundred times—but for us, now, it’s new and different. We feel uncertain.
Often we adopt a perception of ‘it’s too hard’ or ‘it’s too difficult’ from listening to the experience of others. Maybe those others have been through a similar situation before, and they’ve shared their frustrations with us over a coffee… and subsequently, we build a perspective in our minds about that thing being hard.
But when others tell us stories about their experiences, I think it’s important to remember that what they’re saying is ‘they were challenged.’ How we respond to challenge is up to each of us as individuals. We all respond differently. But we can choose to respond with an open mind, with a position of ‘learning and iterating’ rather than ‘if this doesn’t go exactly the way I thought, then it is a failure.’
One thing I’ve learned about attempting any challenge is that you can only prepare so much. At the end of the day you have to think of your approach to said challenges with some humility knowing that things might not work out perfectly. But at the end of the day, even if you fail miserably, what’s the worst that could happen? Ask yourself that and be honest with yourself about the answer. Think about your safety nets, your relationships, and the help you have access to as a member of your family or your community, and even as a citizen. And think about the lessons you’ll learn if you fail—the insights and wisdom you’ll gain, the information you’ll be armed with on your next attempt.
What might your future look like if you pursued those different things with a perspective of ‘this is an experiment’ rather than, ‘this is my one shot.’
We have a tendency to worry too much about what others will think; or maybe we fear our own success… But we forget our ability to adapt, to grow and to get stronger as we move forward.
Exposure and conditioning
Every time we step out of our comfort zone, every time we are faced with difficult situations or stress, we come out stronger. And the next time we deal with similar situations, they are no longer that difficult or stress-inducing. They become easier and easier. This is the real recipe for success: Exposure and conditioning.
Expose yourself to the different activity. Be humble in your approach and open-minded to the outcomes. Then allow yourself to be conditioned by the experience.
It’s just like painting a canvas. We’ll expose our canvas to a first sketch or layer of paint, then another, then another. Each layer conditions the canvas from a blank state to something else.
Or imagine lifting weights. First you expose your muscles to a light weight and you do some reps. Then later on as you repeat the exposure to the task, you condition yourself to lift heavier weights.
Even the most gifted and successful people on the planet have to go through multiple exposures in order to develop their success. There is no such thing as overnight success. No one goes from 0 to 1 that fast. It takes repeated exposures and conditioning to get there.
Different things I’ve done lately
I’ll share some things I’ve done that—trust me—at some point, I wanted to believe were too difficult. Things I either almost quit doing, or almost never did in the first place because of perceived difficulty. These include:
Painting 500 original paintings and giving them away
Running a marathon
Renovating my house (in 9 months)
Writing—starting this blog / newsletter
After moving through each one of these challenges I realize that what I’ve experienced are things that are simply different, not necessarily difficult or hard—just… different. They weren’t the norm for me, until they were. When I began each of these things, they didn’t necessarily follow from some previous expectation or preparation that I had done in the past. And none of these follow from any particular innate talent that I have. Let’s break them down:
500 paintings?
I’ve written about the reasons why I started doing this project, and my history with art, but certainly at times I’ve considered quitting because it is daunting, and costly, and I worried, “will anyone care at the end of the day?” But I feel at this point I’ve made an agreement with myself, perhaps even with a higer power, to just do it. After overcoming my biggest bout of wanting to quit in 2020, I’ve leaned into the perspective of ‘let’s see what happens’ instead. Painting and giving away 500 paintings: Difficult? Actually, no. Time consuming and costly? Yes. But difficult? No. Is it different? Yes. Very different. And I think that’s a good enough reason to keep going.
I developed a keen skill for skipping gym class in my youth—I hated gym, I avoided all sport like the plague because I didn’t believe it was my thing. I was always kind of dorky and generally a bit overweight—sport was no place for me. I eventually got into yoga when I was 13, it was my ‘gateway drug’ to explore the gym outside of the yoga class. Thanks to that, I fell in love with going to the gym at some point in my post-gym-class-skipping phase and found my own way. Eventually I did some 5ks, then a couple of 10ks, and one half marathon—all for charity events. But… run a marathon? I never thought I’d do that. But by the time I arrived at the conclusion that maybe I’d do one, I approached it as ‘it’s something different’ rather than ‘something difficult.’ I mean… people of all skill levels do marathons all the time. You can find training plans on the internet and just go for it. And I figured the worst thing that would happen is I wound up walking part of it. It was something different for me. It challenged me, yes; but it wasn’t hard. It just required a different level of commitment and focus.
I was so naive when I began this project. I’m from America, so all the houses and apartments I ever lived in had been built after 1960, possibly 1970… this isn’t true for all houses in the states, but it was for the ones I experienced. So, I had no idea what to expect with a 130 year old house. I took for granted how much my Dad helped me when I had a house in the states. So with him being 4,000 miles away I had to lean on local trades to make decisions about what to do, and then hire their help for a few tasks that were beyond scope for me. Also—fun fact, I still can’t understand really thick Yorkshire accents either so it felt like there was a language barrier at times 🙈. There were some pitfalls—like how my light breaker kept tripping for a couple of months, or how one of the trades damaged the shower tray after it had been installed and embedded. The whole process challenged me in new ways, definitely. I am sure I complained about how hard it was at times to my friends. But if I were to coach myself through it now, I’d remind myself that all of those things are just different—not hard, not even that difficult, just different. I was being exposed to new things constantly, and over time it conditioned me such that now I have a wealth of useful skills and am better at managing projects.
This is still new and different to me, but the perception of difficult melted away as soon as I started developing a practice. Am I making progress? Yes. Is it difficult? At first it challenged me, but that’s because it was out of my norm—I hadn’t had that much exposure to writing and publishing. Am I great at it? I don’t think so, but I am good at showing up each week and writing something. Right now it is still very much about exposure and conditioning to me. The only thing that matters is that I hit the ‘publish’ button every Sunday before the sun goes down. That’s my only metric right now, folks. This is still in a different realm for me, but its definitely becoming more familiar. And by the way, if you are reading this, thank you for being on this journey with me ❤️
How can we reframe our challenges?
Next time you’re starting to doubt youself, or feel frustrated because your progress isn’t going exactly the way you had anticipated, remind yourself that it is because you’re doing something that is different.
Avoid letting your mind build walls around your progress. By telling yourself that something is too hard or that it isn’t for you, you limit youself.
This doesn’t mean you should stubbornly pursue every goal that comes to mind and force yourself to achieve every thing. It might mean that sometimes you shift the goal post. You might discover through your efforts that either something isn’t resonating with you or perhaps there are some real barriers and constraints that are holding you back. But when that happens, I hope you’ll be creative in finding ways to channel the source energy of that goal into something else.
I think that that source energy is the state of the art that we all have access to. It is the thing that drives us to be creative while we are here on this planet.
A little mantra that I keep in mind is, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Don’t panic, I know these words are from a story in the bible and it might make you feel a little icky reading them. Another way to frame it is, “The state of the art is within you,” or “Beauty, brilliance and achievement are within you.” I just use “kingdom of God” because I like the power in it. I believe we are all capable of doing good (Godly) things, of being creative and using our efforts to do things that are useful, meaningful, and / or beautiful. We are all capable of making improvements within ourselves and within the world around us. Even if your goal sounds selfish to others (or to yourself), remember that change comes from within and you can only help others if you’ve helped yourself first.
When I think of “the kingdom of God is within you,” I just think “Yeah, I’m here to create and do good things in this body on this planet. It is all within me already. I only have to activate it, to express it—and through my actions I expose and condition myself to an even higher good. My inner and outer kingdom expands with every creative and challenging action I take. I become stronger, wiser, more creative, more successful.”
So, whatever acts of creation or change are on your heart and mind, I hope you pursue them. And just remember that they’re different, not difficult.
We’ve got this.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I really appreciate you being here with me.
If you enjoyed this, please subscribe and share with your friends! I’ll write again next week with more insights on the state of the art.
I really like the reframing of it's not difficult, just different.