Design Your Struggle

"It's what you NEED TO DO"

I sat complacent and unmoved by the statement hurled at me by loved ones.

You see, for the majority of my life things have been mostly easy. School came easy, work has mostly come easy, learning is easy... the list goes on.

I've been fortunate throughout my life that things I've done have been mostly easy.

Sounds great right? Super lucky to be able to adapt quickly and pick up on things easily. And honestly, it is.

The caveat here is - I've never had to legitimately give something 100% of my effort. Since the muscle hasn't been flexed nearly enough, I find it difficult to do.

I'll distract myself, avoid, deflect, and just not do things because of it.

It's super frustrating.

What I've come to realize is you NEED STRUGGLE in life in order to become anything. You need to be willing to push through the struggle to become a better person.

I've spent the last few weeks in a state of how to put this all together. I've realized my lackluster regiment/structure has led to time getting away from me. After all, time not budgeted will disappear just like money not budgeted.

The price paid? Things not getting done, people are neglected, health has waned, and drive has dropped. The edge is missing.

Does this sound remotely familiar? Do you reject struggle and take the easy path constantly?

Of course you do, we are practically taught to do it. So what do we do?

One of the most fascinating lessons I’ve absorbed about life is that the struggle is good. -Joe Rogan

Life is in the Struggle

The struggle of life is never-ending. Without it we lose our sense of self and why we are here. We lose our edge.

You see, the beauty of life is in the resilience and experience you gain from it.

Resistance is the key piece to knowing what you should struggle for.

The question is, will you push through it or bounce off of it?

The ego mind hates it and tries to fight it or run away. It doesn’t want to struggle or confront the resistance unless you teach it to.

The Ego

Let's give the ego mind a quick explanation.

It's the voice in your head.

Its primary goal is survival and comfort.

Therefore, whenever you run into a scenario that challenges this, the alarm system goes off.

The ego will try to do anything in its power to stop you. It will make you think you don't want to do something, it will make you sick, and it will tell you anything to try and halt you from moving forward.

It will even try and convince the brain through hormones and the like to stop you from wanting to do something (nervousness, stress, anxiety, etc.)

So when something challenging you want to do comes along, it WILL try to stop you, over and over again.

Reasons To Do Things You Don't Want To Do

I was watching a video with Andrew Huberman and David Goggins discussing willpower and doing things you don't want to do

Here it is: Huberman and Goggins

It's 100% worth the watch.

I want to point out a major piece of this video. When you push yourself to do something you DO NOT LIKE doing, a portion of your brain grows. Huberman touches on the fact that it has to be something you don't like doing. As soon as you begin liking it, the effect on your brain ceases.

I won't go into this more since you should definitely watch the above clip.

Watching it really resonated with what I wanted to write here so it is worth including.

It's another big reason why struggling and pushing yourself through the resistance of life is something we all should be doing.

Putting Struggle to Work

Strength and Growth come only from continuous effort and struggle - Napoleon Hill

So, if you plan for struggle you can make your mind stronger, build willpower, and develop a stronger sense of inner self.

Let's look at struggle and structure.

In the image above you can see how what you need to do is dictated.

Effectively - what you need to do is generally difficult. Most people avoid it. The more impactful it is, the harder it will be to do.

In lieu of this, it is important that you have a regiment/structure in place to increase the odds of you getting what you need to, done.

The big reason it is needed is because you will experience more struggle/resistance.

Let’s put something together that enables us to handle tougher things.

The Breakdown

I’ll use an example here that will show you how to handle anything you want to get done, in simple terms.

If you take a look at the chart above you'll note that the harder something is the more structure you need, and vice versa. This chart applies to anything we do.

Start with content creation as an easy topic to jump into. You want to start writing content on an extremely consistent level. Putting out content on multiple social media feeds, creating videos, writing newsletters/blogs, and becoming a media powerhouse.

What I wrote out above can give you a bit of sticker shock. It’s a lot, after all. How much do you want me to write? How often?

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

What I wrote most likely will make it hard for you to act on it. When something you want to do feels like too much you won't do it. You will continuously push it off. So, we need to break it down into smaller parts.?

Define the Goal

Produce content on multiple social media feeds.

Which feeds?

LinkedIn and X

How often do you want to post?

Twice a week on LinkedIn and Twice a day on X

Now that this is defined, you take it a step further and get more specific on goals.

LinkedIn - Post Tuesday and Thursday

X - Monday thru Friday

I need to write 2 posts per week for LinkedIn.

I need to write 10 tweets per week for X.

How much time does it take to write a post for LinkedIn?

30 Minutes x 2 - 1 hour for two posts on LinkedIn

How about tweets?

5 Minutes per Tweet. So 50 minutes for 10 tweets a week.

Now we know it's going to take us about 2 hours a week to get this done.

Scheduling this time with the expectation that this is all you’re doing will help get it done. The task becomes a much easier pill to swallow.

Now, the odds of you getting it done go up.

The breakdown of a large goal into small bite-size pieces eases the burden and increases the odds of it being completed.

What I'm Doing

My goal over the coming 6 months is to build a regiment that creates the best outcome for my life.

In the next newsletter, I'm going to share the structure and what I'm going to do to stick to it.

I'm also in the process of building out a sales course using the Socratic Selling Methodology. Lots of moving parts right now that I am excited to share!