No Pain No Gain is A Lie!

Do you believe that important things come with difficulty and you need to work very hard to get them?

That has been my belief for long years. I remember buying a lottery ticket years ago while my mum was with me and she said "You would not win the lottery, you win everything with your own, hard efforts". This was the moment when I realised how hard I work to get what I want. Subconsciously I had the similar belief to my mum's : what I want comes with hard work and effort. I also supported this belief with getting more satisfaction from being strong and resilient when things are hard and tiring.

Solving hard problems, doing the most difficult things that others would not choose to do were giving me a sense of achievement so I made things harder for myself by just thinking important accomplishments come only with great exertion and difficulty. But that does not always need to be the case.

Our brains only allow us to see what fits with its preexisting belief system. If you think important accomplishments come only with great exertion and difficulty your mind won't see or believe in the easier paths to those accomplishments that are right in front of you. This is proven by scientific experiments.

Since I realised that, I have been training to rewire my brain to the new belief:

The best path forward is the path that has ease and flow to it.

That does not mean avoiding difficulties. That means finding a different path around or through the obstacle.

When you are in a difficult situation today, stop.

Ask yourself how it could be easier. Just don't keep pushing hard.

Even better is to anticipate for such a situation:

- What would be one situation or person that would be difficult to deal with today? Something that feels a little bit hard and requiring pushing yourself or others harder?

- What is one think that you could do to make this easier and requiring less pushing of yourself or others?

Imagine yourself doing that and moving forward with greater ease.

If you want to continue the discussion email or follow me on LinkedIn.

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Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps individuals and organisations become better at achieving their purpose.

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* Cover photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash.