Hard things are hard

I’ve spoken to a handful of people this past couple of weeks for whom this was a tough realisation:

Hard things are hard.

People considering pursuing their dreams, but afraid to do so. It’s hard to go and do something different where you have no experience and success isn’t guaranteed. But hard things are hard, not bad.

People considering which type of business they’d like to create. Assessing which type of business would be ‘easier’ when, in reality, all new businesses are hard work, and most of them don’t succeed. But hard things are hard, not bad.

People considering tough conversations they need to have with an employee. Tough conversations are so often the best conversations, ones where real progress is made. They can often be uncomfortable, but hard things are hard, not bad.

Separating ‘hard’ from ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ is one of the most important shifts we make in our pursuit of meaningful work and our growth.

Vive la difficile.