Stop Saying It Will Be Hard... Choose This Instead.

Alright, I’ve been sitting on this for a while because it goes against what some of my most treasured writers and mentors reiterate over and over.? But I can’t hide my truth.

Absolutely, we humans CAN DO hard things. Need proof? Just look around.?

I noticed this week:

• A single mom raising three teenagers while working full-time
• A 13-year-old stepping into their sexuality and gender preference by sharing it with her family
• The homeless person on the corner who’s just slept all night on the streets

Choosing to live by the mantra “I can do hard things” will actually keep reinforcing that things are hard.?

Why?

Because that’s the context you’re choosing to buy into. If you approach your day, that conversation, that idea, that big event as “this is going to be hard,” you’re damn right, it will be. Every time.??

Understanding context will help you lead in a way that feels empowering and doable. Most of us default to circumstances informing our context. For ex: we just moved to a new house. If I tell myself weeks on end this is going to be so hard because we have to move with 3 kids in tow, how do you think I’ll experience it??

Or, I was on with a Creative Director this week and he mentioned he needs to have a conversation with a colleague and didn’t want to have it because it was going to be “hard.”?

I asked him, “How do you know?”?

Which of course he then responded with a variety of reasons as to why it would be hard. All of which were assumptions. They might have even been good assumptions based on previous experiences, but they were still assumptions.??

I challenged him to consider a different context to lead from. He chose curiosity. We worked on how he could frame having the conversation from a place of curiosity, and different language tone, and CONTEXT started to percolate. And guess what?! He started to feel more grounded and calm - which will no doubt help how he starts

that conversation.??

Instead of telling yourself, you can do hard things, which reinforces that it will be hard, choose a different context.?

I’m leaning into the mantra? “We can BE uncomfortable.” Because I know when I choose to get outside of my comfort zone and feel the jitters that arise in that space, that’s where magic happens. By living from that context, I notice it creates a crack in the experience for light to come in and often more times than not, it wasn’t ALL hard.?

Context is everything.? Everything. If you don’t choose your context for the day, trust me, the world will choose it for you.?

So in your leadership this week -- notice if you're telling yourself that things will be hard, and then buying into it even more by telling yourself you can do hard things *we know you can*.

Instead, what context might you choose to live from today???

I’m choosing to remind myself that “we { I } can be uncomfortable.”

-SG.