How do you handle life's hard stuff?

Feeling stuck. Pressing ahead anyway. Looking for a way out. Those dilemmas can sneak up on all of us, from students to CEOs. When projects go south and anxiety sets in, we're as willful as an infant trying to crank out one more push-up. We're struggling with life's hard stuff.

Each crisis is its own story -- or is it? In the past few months, I've been privy to a lot of conversations with friends and business associates about these struggles. (Mostly I'm the listener; occasionally I'm the person feeling squeezed.) Regardless of whether the topic is tomorrow's midterm or next week's board meeting, there's one simple framing step at the beginning that can help these discussions go a lot better.

Take a moment to define what type of "hard" is causing all this trouble. I'll argue that life's hard stuff splits into three categories. Each strains us in different ways. Each is susceptible to a different kind of solution.

To see these distinctions in real life, let's visit the hot, humid pine forests of North Carolina's Camp Mackall. That's where the U.S. Army tests potential recruits for Special Forces. I got to know that world a while ago, researching the opening chapter of this book. Mackall is an epic test of character, narrowing the candidate pool by putting ambitious young solders through every possible version of "the hard stuff."

Scenario 1: Crises where you've got grueling work ahead of you, but it's clear what's expected. In these cases, success is all about showing up fit and focused. Build a plan and stick to it. As pressure builds, keep a steady tone by trusting in all the discipline that's brought you this far.

I'll never forget the sight - during my first evening at Camp Mackall -- of a muddy field filled with soldiers cranking out push-ups. Suddenly, a whistle blew, and it was time for the soldiers to turn over and churn out flutter-kicks until it felt as if their abdominal muscles were on fire. A moment later: more push-ups, or an excruciating log lift.

Strikingly, very few soldiers flunked out at this stage. This was the type of "hard" that they'd been expecting. Almost all of them were in excellent physical shape; they had trained for this. The ones most at risk were a small number of slackers, who hadn't done the conditioning ahead of time that's necessary for success.

Scenario 2: Crises that push you toward a daunting goal, without any idea of how to get there. Now you're unprepared. Dashing into action can be a ticket to pointless exhaustion; you'll waste all your energy working incoherently on the wrong things. Even if you hear the clock ticking, your way out involves thinking before doing. Get advice. Talk to experts. Take a deep breath and study the situation. Be prepared to iterate a lot: learning, doing, fine-tuning and then doing some more.

Wonder how this plays out in real life? At Camp Mackall, I watched eight teams of soldiers trying to push rusted-out trailers with missing wheels across two miles of sandy soil. There's a way to make the job easier, by lashing together some supporting poles that provide better pushing stations. But it's not obvious.

The soldiers who were in a hurry to start doing something -- anything! -- never found the right workaround. They picked doomed strategies, refused to let go, and never made it to the finish line. The soldiers who took a few minutes to collect their thoughts at the beginning, or who calmly kept making adjustments as they went along, fared much better.

Scenario 3: Crises where you know what needs to be done -- but you just don't want to do it. This is the most treacherous form of "hard." As motivation falters, you can briefly postpone collapse by breaking big tasks into little ones with embedded rewards. ("Just two more sales calls before lunch.") You can shore up your resolve by writing down your goals in a prominent place. But there's only so far you can get on your own.

For sustained commitment during the hardest moments, you're going to need the encouragement -- and some nudges, too -- of a cohort you really care about. Seek out those teammates. Confide in them. Let the strength of the group carry you forward. All the same, leave a little room in your mind for the notion that if you can't find that support, this might be the right time to let go, and make a fresh start somewhere else.

At Camp Mackall, the fiercest sorting system turned out to be daylong marches across flat terrain. The work itself didn't seem hard at all. But it was relentless. I tagged along with several of those groups, and to my surprise, every hour or so, a strong-looking soldier would start to fall behind. His gaze would turn glassy. He'd ignore the program leaders' directives to catch up with the pack. Motivation had collapsed; quitting time had arrived. Meanwhile, the soldiers who were still walking together -- even the frailer-looking ones -- kept up the tempo.

Put all these pieces together, and the keys to prevailing in the face of "hard" are quite straightforward. Show up prepared for any hard task. Find experts who can help you build a plan (and rebuild it) if you aren't sure what to do. And if your motivation falters, look for a trustworthy group that can help you stay on track. Sometimes, we stray from these basics when we get very stressed. But there's no reason we can't rediscover them when we need them the most.

There's a great summing-up observation in the book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things," written by the venture capitalist Ben Horowitz. In his words, the very best chief executives don't credit their success to any brilliant decisions that they might have made. Instead, Horowitz write: "The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, 'I didn’t quit.'”