“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” — Seneca
“Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times, easy times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” — G. Michael Hopf
“The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.” — Richard M. Nixon
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” ― CS Lewis
“Difficult and meaningful will always bring more satisfaction than easy and meaningless.” — Maxime Lagace
“I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.” — [@gogginsCantHurtMe2018]
“Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.” — [@gogginsCantHurtMe2018]
Do the hard thing, because after doing it, you will feel that you can do anything.
- Confidence is built, not born. Manufacturing evidence of your ability to do hard things is how you create confidence when you’re feeling low.
Do hard things that really matters; audacious ideas lead to true motivation.
Do hard things, but don’t make easy things hard.
Hard means worry: if you’re not worrying that something you’re making will come out badly, or that you won’t be able to understand something you’re studying, it isn’t hard enough.
It’s better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war.
Stop wanting things to be easy. Prepare for them to be hard.
When we embrace voluntary struggles, we’re better equipped/prepared for the involuntary struggles that inevitably enter our world.
- Get comfortable by being uncomfortable.
- Avoid unchosen suffering by choosing chosen suffering.
- Fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
Callous Your Mind. Develop Mental Calluses.
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- Just as hands develop calluses through repeated friction, the mind can be “calloused” through enduring hardships.
- Seek discomfort intentionally to strengthen mental resilience.
“If you have 2 choices to make and they’re relatively equal (50-50), take the path that is more difficult and painful in the short term.” — Naval Ravikant
“Easy choices, hard life. 1 Hard choices, easy life.” — Jerzy Gregorek
“The costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.” — James Clear
- Short-term pain typically creates compounding long-term gain.
- Short-term cost pays long-term dividend.
- Every gain in life comes from compound interests. Almost all mistakes in life come from short-term thinking. The things that feel good to us in the short-term are rarely the things that are good for us in the long-term.
- 先苦後甘 > 先甘後苦
- Hard now, easy later.
- Always choose harder right over easier wrong.
Comfort is the most seductive thing in existence. Comfort is not free. It comes at the cost of who you could become. Step into the unknown. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world.
When things get hard, the mental gymnastics start—you start convincing yourself that it’s ok to ease up, that the clear path to your lesser goals looks pretty darn good. At this moment, tell yourself: “It’s supposed/meant to be hard/difficult. If it were easy, everyone would do it. ”
The Sinatra Test: Something passes the test if a single example of success is sufficient to effectively create a halo of “credibility” for future endeavors.
- “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” (from Frank Sinatra’s famous song, New York, New York)
Doing the Unrealistic is Easier Than Doing the Realistic
See also:
Footnotes
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What brings you joy in the present often conflicts with what brings you fulfillment in the future. Chasing short-term clout is a recipe for long-term misery. ↩