What is your relationship to hard things?
Don't start a nicotine habit. It's hard to quit.
There are all sorts of substances to use and abuse that can not only make life difficult, but a living hell.
There are coworkers that will get on your nerves.
There are problems at work that you wish would just go away.
The man or woman in your life will do something that hurts your feelings.
Every family has a history of hardship.
So what are we to do?
Power Acronym 176: H.A.R.D.
Handle Adversity, Really Develop
This may sound trite, but deal with it.
Life is full of P.U.H.
Living on purpose is not about living a life that is absent of hardship. It is about continuing the pursuit despite it.
Look at this:
It's a powerful visual representation of our comfort zone.
The only thing I don't like about it is that the “Growth Zone” says nothing about much harder it is to do the thing it lists.
It also says nothing about the circumstances that are currently holding you back.
Setting new goals is much easier than ACHIEVING new goals.
Especially when the NEW part feels like swimming against the current.
I want personal, professional, and financial growth…but does it have to feel like drowning?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
Fortunately, the answer is also only sometimes.
Here's the point:
When life gets hard, go H.A.R.D.
When you Handle the Adversity, you Really Develop.
Because the phoenix rises from the ashes.
David is cut from the marble.
The rose grows from concrete.
Today's the day to be strong.
And strength only comes from pushing through the resistance.
I once went on a meditation retreat with a wonderful teacher named Shinzen Young, who gave me words of wisdom that I'll never forget. He said that the key to happiness was understanding that suffering is caused by resisting pain. We can't avoid pain in life, he said, but we don't necessarily have to suffer because of that pain... he chose to express these words of wisdom with an equation: 'Suffering = Pain x Resistance.' He then added, 'Actually, it's an exponential rather than a multiplicative relationship.' His point was that we can distinguish between the normal pain of life - difficult emotions, physical discomfort, and so on - and actual suffering, which is the mental anguish caused by fighting against the fact that life is sometimes painful."
Kristin Neff, Self Compassion
Handle Adversity, Really Develop
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