Choose your hard. With purpose.
I just came back from a 24-hour team race.
I spent the night on the track, and stopped 12 hours in, along with another teammate. Two guys kept going.
I wasn’t exhausted or tired.
I didn’t even push myself that hard.
And I realized something uncomfortable and freeing at the same time.
I didn’t care enough to push.
Not because I’m weak. Not because I couldn’t. Not because I don't have the willpower to do the things I don't enjoy much.
But because this wasn’t a challenge I wanted to suffer for.
And that’s okay.
The team didn’t need me for their journey either - so I quit.
We carry this strange badge of honor in our culture:
“If you start, you must finish.” Grit and all.
So we:
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Stay in relationships that no longer fulfill us
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Stay in jobs that drain us
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Keep pushing projects that don’t bring out our best or progress and growth
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Stay loyal to diets, plans, identities that clearly aren’t working for OUR life
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...
We push the boulder up the wrong mountain, proudly repeating:
“Winners never quit.”
Correction.
Winners don’t quit on the RIGHT thing.
The real skill isn’t grit at all costs.
It’s self-awareness.
Knowing what deserves your grit.
A client of mine was choosing between 2 jobs to support herself while building her business:
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One was easier, closer to home, lower potential for income
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The other was more complex, demanding but with more upside as well in the future
I asked her one question:
“Is this the hard you want to add to your life while working on what you actually want?”
It was clear for her what to choose.
She already had enough hard reserved for her right thing.
A new friend of mine recently quit his marketing job to build his own business. He said:
“I realized that to get to the next level there, I’d have to work harder, and I didn’t care enough to do that.
Everything meaningful is hard. So I chose the hard that leads me where I want to go.”
And that's the whole point.
Life will be hard ANY way.
Effort is non-negotiable.
Discomfort is guaranteed.
The only real choice you get is where you spend it.
So, over to you dear reader,
What’s one “hard” in your life that you’re tolerating but wouldn’t choose again if you were100% true to yourself?
Name it in the comments. Or, at least, just for yourself.
