Hard Things

(Snowdon Mountain Railway, photo credit bbc.com)

What do you do when you are faced with something really hard? What's your personality make-up? Do you shrink back in fear? Are you calculated, do you weigh the risks carefully before you take a step? Are you a bower of confidence? Do you boldly march forward without a thought of how the task or situation could crumble around you, knowing your plan is the right one?

I think we can all honestly say we fall in one of those categories. What would you say if I told you, that one thing above all, is the make or break of accomplishing hard things? 

In the scope of my life I've seen a lot of people do a lot of things that I've considered hard. Of course there is obviously a spectrum. I mean....a page of math is one thing, and then there's things like taking on an entirely new career path that will change your income, your family's lives, even maybe where you live. Maybe it's a debilitating illness that you're forced to watch a love one go through. Maybe it's a goal in your own life that is completely blocked, and it's the only thing that you ever imagined yourself having or doing?  If there's one thing I've witnessed and experienced in my life over and over again, is that there is plenty of hard stuff to go around for all of us. 

It comes in all shapes and sizes, and life's hardship is no respecter of persons. Meaning, it treats all people the same way. It can come in like a thief in the night. It moves with a skill like a ninja, avoiding detection, making the quietest of movements possible and then BAM.....out of nowhere difficulty swoops in and hurls "throwing stars" of defeat, pain, shame, fear, or uncertainty. 

On the flip side, sometimes you can see it coming a mile away. There is a big parade of challenge coming right at you. All signs and signals are pointing at the same path you are on, there's nowhere to take a hard left or right, you're stuck, it's coming for you and there's no way to avoid it. 

In either reality we are faced with thousands of choices. The thousands of choices come from thousands of thoughts. Thoughts are mostly benign. They are just ideas that pop in and out of our minds like little lightbulbs intermittently blinking on a strand of Christmas lights.  Most of the time thoughts are not right or wrong, they are just thoughts. They are spurred by our stories, our life experiences shape them. We have trained them in a way, to take on a pattern, because it's not the thoughts themselves, it's what we think about our thoughts. It's the hours we spend pondering decisions. Times we feel we've made a wrong choice, and we rehearse our failure speech. Of course there are times we've made what we thought was a right decision only to be smacked with another challenge and we realize we got ahead of ourselves and caused a bigger problem. Cue the shame self-talk. Then there are the times we can't even make a move because we are paralyzed. Fear starts it's dialogue with our heart. 

So maybe, just maybe, it's the attitude we have about what's happening to us that affects how we navigate the hard experience?

I was just talking to a friend today about her attitude. I've been so impressed with her process through a challenge in her life, and how her thinking regarding it has literally helped in her success in overcoming it. I've witnessed some key things. 

She's others focused - in essence the challenge that was presented to her was tackled by her mindset of how her choices would affect others. She cares about people. She's not so self preserving that she can't imagine walking a hard road if someone else's path might be smoother as a result.

She's got grit. She is looking for the positivity in the situation. Focused on the areas where she can make things better, by elbow grease and hard work she will do it. She's trying to avoid the pitfalls of negativity, the thinking that only sees the worst outcomes, which help nobody ever, in any situation. 

She's brave. She thinks she can, so she will. The Little Engine that Could can still teach us how to puff and chug up those mountains of life. Thinking you can tackle something is literally half the battle sometimes. 

Lastly, there's humility showing. We all need help. Most often we can't do difficult tasks without friends or family who love us and want to get in the trenches with us. In my opinion, only fools shuffle through hard times alone. We are designed to walk alongside others and care for one another. Teaming up when you are in the fray of battle is the only way to fight!

So tomorrow, when something smacks you over the head and you find yourself careening into a tough situation, how will you respond? How will you process the thoughts that rise about it? What attitudes will you apply to those thoughts? What speeches have you rehearsed that you need to quit repeating? 

So many questions. How will you answer? 

Looking for the light,

Angie