The Only Way To It Is Through It

I was at the gym last week and had an interesting conversation with my trainer. I’m a far cry from where I once was fitness-wise and it shows when I do certain exercises, such as ones that work my hamstrings. When I work them hard, I have a few days of almost debilitating pain just because they’re so weak and out of shape. We were coming up with a strategy to build them up and my trainer said, “Perhaps we can figure out how to work around the edges of where they’ll start hurting so that you’re not in so much pain” and I just blurted out, “I don’t think there’s a way around this, the only way may be through it.”

There’s a certain universal truth to this statement, whether it’s dealing with physical problems such as getting fit or recovering from an illness or accident, but also with higher-order problems like building a new product for market or restructuring a team or an organization to be effective.

You can “window-dress” the situation by installing ping pong tables or giving teams cute names to make work more “fun”, but know this: you and your team are going to have to go through the hard work and have the discipline and grit to get up every morning, put one foot in front of the other, breathe in and out, and gut your way through the process to get to the goal.

The only way to it is through it. There’s no other way.