Hey Reader,
Some things are hard because they’re genuinely demanding.
But most things feel hard because of the state you walk into them with.
Some people don’t see their big dreams through to the end because their mind has built an imaginary, scary wall that’s too hard to break through.
In today’s issue, we’ll uncover how to find ease in doing hard things.
💭 You’ve always been there before
Let’s talk about Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time.
He’s an American swimmer with 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.
There’s this race he swam at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 200m butterfly.
If you’ve seen it, you already know what’s coming.
Right as the race started, his goggles began to leak.
By the time he hit the second lap, they were filled with water.
He couldn’t see a thing, but he stayed steady and focused on his rhythm.
Imagine that for a second.
An Olympic final. Millions are watching, and you’re basically swimming blind.
After the race, which he won by the way, someone asked him how he didn’t lose his mind in the middle of all that.
He said, “I knew exactly how many strokes I needed. I wasn’t panicking.”
It was an uncomfortable situation, no doubt, but something about his state of mind made it easy to pull through.
🧠 Your mind can be an obstacle
If we’re being honest, “hard” gets multiplied inside the mind long before it shows up in the task.
You know the feeling: that tightness in your chest, the racing thoughts, pressure to get it right, fear and all that.
And just like that, your mind is going batshit crazy.
But this happens when we meet a challenge with tension, fear of the unknown, and fear of failure.
It's hard to handle an uncomfortable situation in that state.
Your mind is already overthinking scenarios, second-guessing, and imagining outcomes that haven’t even happened yet.
So at this point, you’re struggling to get the work done, and stop the storm you feel inside.
It’s like you’re trying to outrun your own anxiety and still get the job done.
Then the thoughts of quitting seep in.
You might do it eventually, but you’ll feel so drained, and you may have lost your joy in the process.
Because you’re operating from the wrong internal state.
A pressured state of mind will paint easily achievable things as monsters.
❤️ Trust yourself, and trust yourself some more
Hard things become easier when you reconnect with trust in your capabilities, training, and experience.
It brings a calmer, more confident, and more grounded version of yourself to the situation.
You don’t get mad at things for long because you know you can either figure it out or not.
So your mind is prepared to tackle the situation in your best state, since anything else makes things worse.
That frame of mind reconnects you with who you are.
The training you’ve put in.
The experience you’ve built.
The things you’ve survived.
The things you’ve figured out.
So your thoughts line up clearly, your body is relaxed to take action, and your decisions are not panic-induced.
The hard thing won’t go away.
But you’ll be internally stable to walk through it, and it just makes everything feel lighter.
🤲 The art of making hard things easy
I’ve learned that if your peace depends on everything going alright, it’s not peace.
Peace comes from a mindset that’s always ready to pull you back to trust yourself.
Here are 5 simple steps to bring ease into challenging moments:
- Find you in the situation. Why did you start this in the first place? What’s the big purpose? What abilities did you trust enough to start this, even if you were unsure of the outcome? Answering this will reconnect you with your capabilities. It’ll give you steady momentum and help you take better action.
- Strip the task down to what’s real. Now, in that calm state, ask yourself: What is the actual action required here? Most of the weight of a hard thing comes from the story you attach to the task, not the task itself. So strip it down. You’ll be surprised, it may not seem as hard.
- Break the task into a finish line you can see. Your mind relaxes when it knows where it’s going. What is the endpoint of the action required in step 2? This is where you spell it out.
- Choose the pace that calms your head. Rushing will feed your panic. Nobody’s going to die. Don’t rip your heart out with panic. Break down the finish line into manageable steps and follow them one at a time.
- Act. At this point, things will feel a lot easier. It may still feel a bit hard, but with a clearer head to tackle it. And when your mind tries to start imagining outcomes, embarrassment, pressure, or “what ifs”, call yourself back. Trust yourself.
🎯 Use your unfair advantage
How much more would you achieve if your first instinct wasn’t tension, but trust?
Think about how far you’ll go if you stopped entering hard moments like you have something to prove, and started embracing them like you have nothing to fear.
The easier you are on the inside, the more decisive you become on the outside.
As Marcus Aurelius said, “The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
So trust yesterday’s you, trust you more today, and be prepared to trust you a little more tomorrow.
You’ve got this.
With appreciation,
Huw.
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Huw Edwards
Founder & CEO, h3.xyz
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