Hard things are hard to do. That’s why we call them hard things, not easy things. But most hard things are not hard for the reason you think.
For most of my life I believed that hard things were hard to do because the act of doing them or just learning how to do them were hard. As in only special people could do hard things. Because doing the hard things required special talents.
I am not special. Doing hard things was not for me.
Recently, I realised that I have been all wrong all my life. The hard thing about hard things is not that they are particularly hard to do, or learn. Almost every level of every hard thing is reachable for ordinary people without any special talents.
“But if hard things aren’t hard,” I can hear you asking, “why don’t we call them easy things and why aren’t more people doing the hard things that should be called easy things?”
You see, hard things are still hard. But for a different reason than you probably believe. The thing that makes most hard things hard is that they require hard work. Not that they are difficult to understand, or impossible to do, or only for the particularly gifted and the especially talented.
Hard things require focus and dedication and consistency and perseverance and a willingness to fail and look and feel stupid while you acquire the required skills.
But you can do them. Of all the hard things, which ones do you want to do? Pick one, do it. You can, I promise.