If You Want an Easy Life, Do The Hard Things

It is no big secret that there is a pattern that dances through history illustrating the following truth: Hard times make good people, good people make good times, however, good times make bad people, and bad people make hard times. Many of the people that we think of as being "great" were born into the harder of times; these leaders chose to do hard things, to face the arduous struggle with grit and patience. From the Ancient Stoics to the Roman Emperors to the Founding Fathers, their stories show us that if you do hard things with virtue, then even the toughest problems are ripe for the conquering! In the repetition of this conquest you will find a life well lived.

While the challenges I cover in this article won't be of such an epic scale, the same strategies apply no matter the size-or shape-of the issue. In the following sections, we will cover starting the process by finishing it first, how to break through a host of common barriers you might find along the way, and finally, how to divide and conquer the problem bit by bit to avoid any overwhelming feelings of overwhelm or anxiety.

Finish The Thing First

Before you get stuck in and try to trample through the problem willy-nilly, we want to actually begin by visualizing what success will look like. How will you know you have completed the task? What feelings will fill you up when it is completed? Once you have witnessed your victory in your mind's eye-don't linger there too long or it can backfire. Next, you must look behind you, on the path to victory, there are many obstacles... which ones did you need to conquer to stand on victory’s hill and bask in all that glory. Imagining the possible troubles you might face is a good way to prepare for and even get ahead of them.

Next, look at all the other paths you could have tried to take to achieve your goals that led to defeat. “The path to weight loss is not paved with chocolate cake,” if you know what I mean. Take stock of the decisions that stand in the way of your achievement so you know where to NOT go and which directions to avoid heading in.

Now that you know what might get in the way and which directions to NOT go in, let us take one more look at the you who is victorious and ask, "What did this version of me do to get here?" What can you assume about the habits, actions, resources, or relationships and people recruited for assistance that the victor you see before you had or gained in order to succeed. Now ask, "What do I need to do to match that persona?" Are you lacking in a specific area that you need help in? How did the future conqueror handle that? Find these answers AND a way to start making the answers your personal truths.

Note: This is a method called "backcasting" and it is from David Elikwu's book Seven Frames. It is a free PDF that is well worth the read!

Breaking Through Barriers

Now that we know how to reverse-engineer your success story and we also have a good idea of the problems that might come up, we should talk about strategies to face those issues when they come up. This is where our lateral thinking strategies come into play. Lateral thinking is a creative, indirect problem-solving approach that involves using unorthodox methods to find innovative solutions not obtainable through traditional, logical reasoning. The term was coined by Edward de Bono (author of Six Thinking Hats). One of my favorite non-fiction authors, it emphasizes challenging assumptions, adopting new perspectives, and making unusual connections to "think outside the box" and generate fresh ideas. To challenge the assumptions you must question established beliefs and question those questions until they lead to a "what if" scenario even if that scenario seems illogical.

How it works: 1) Identify Assumptions, 2) Challenge, 3) Question, 4) Seek new perspective, 5) Make unconventional connections, 6) Embrace non-linear thinking.

In his book Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono describes six different different colors of hat that you can wear to view a problem. Each color represents a different style of viewpoint of thinking you can use to approach the issue. For example, the red hat is emotional thinking and the black hat represents taking a critical viewpoint. The book is a must-read for lateral thinking inspiration!

If all else fails and you find you are still stuck, you can make the wise executive decision to take a creative break or switch projects for a while. Take a moment to doodle for a bit, write a short poem, or look at something you find inspiring... you never know what might jolt you forward with a Jimmy Neutron style "Brain Blast." Focusing on another project might end up giving you insights into those in which where you were floundering.

If you are well and truly in the muck and mire, spend some time thinking about why you are grateful for this challenge. How is it making you better? What weakness is it exposing that you can now work on fixing? What are some spots in the project that could have gone worse but didn't? A dose of gratitude will buoy you in the midst of your struggles until you find a solution.

Now the Journey Begins

To round things off, I will speak on some strategies that help you take the first step with the intention of beating a project's worst nightmare... Procrastination. These tactics are great ways to get out of the gate or off the starting line even if the task or project is incredibly large and daunting.

Split a big task into thirds, next split each third into thirds, continue doing this until you have a smallest actionable step-a minimal effective dose of effort-to get you going. Use the rest of the splits as checkpoints and if a checkpoint seems too big... split it again until it is something achievable for you.

Eat the frog. If you are feeling "froggy" take on the most challenging part of one of the task splits first. Getting the most difficult items knocked out first will make everything else feel even easier! This will put you at ease, early, especially if you have a deadline or time constraint.

Aim for progress, not perfection. It is perfectly fine to have ten iterations of rough draft rather than trying to get it perfect on the first go around. Aim for volume of things created and you will eventually find your "winner"! If you try and make the best draft, your first draft you are dooming yourself to slow, arduous do-overs and slow progress.

Recap

So, let's recap. We have covered that life is easier if we do the hard things and conquering the hard things will help us obtain a life well lived. Then we reviewed the process of starting a task by finishing it in our mind’s eye to decipher what the finish will look and feel like. We also went over the fact that you don't want to dither or dally in these feelings, but use them to your advantage by anticipating obstacles and figuring out where we DON'T want to go. Then we covered backcasting, how to look at the assumptions that make that future true and use them as guideposts on your path to the future you that we envisioned.

Next we talked about ways to break through any barriers that we saw in the visualization by using lateral thinking. I also recommended reviewing "Six Thinking Hats" by Edward de Bono. If Lateral thinking wasn't enough, then we covered solutions that involved putting the project down for a moment, using gratitude to expose the positive aspects of our current struggles.

We rounded our learning off with strategies to make the doing of the task or project more manageable... tactics like 5% task splitting, how to eat the frog, and our orientation of aiming for progress not perfection. When you aim for volume instead of quality, you will eventually produce something 'grand.’

I hope you enjoyed reading this and give these tactics a trial-run in your day-to-day work. Nothing can replace good old fashioned effort, but there are ways to get maximum output for minimum input. Find your minimum effective dose and you will leave yourself some space to breath and stay sane in the trenches, so to speak.