Life’s journey is littered with choices between taking the easy road or the one more difficult. We often find the choice is driven by pragmatism—i.e. “This is not that important to me. I need to find the easiest way to move on.”
But, what if you find that nothing is that important and you gravitate toward always taking the easy road? This may lead you down the road to boredom and depression. You wake up every day to the same old grind, the same old job, the same old friends, the same old routine. There is nothing to look forward to.
It is a choice to find something difficult. Choosing to tackle something that is really difficult, something that you always thought you could never do, can instantly put a spark in a boring life. Just making the decision can be scary and exhilarating at the same time. Suddenly, there are a lot of things that need to get done. There are a lot of questions that need answers. Where do I get advice? Where am I going to fit this into my busy non-schedule.
Getting started is no doubt the worst part of achieving something difficult. Nobody loves being a beginner. Nobody loves looking stupid or asking stupid questions. You have to find a way to endure being a beginner or else what you chose is too easy. If you are a young kid, being a beginner is easy because everyone else is a beginner. Being a beginner at any age above 30 is a whole different situation, since you will likely be surrounded by people doing what they have been doing since childhood.
If you are not the odd person who is immune to what others think and say, there are options. You may be able to be a beginner in private. For instance, go and fall off of your new bicycle in some far away park. Nowadays, you can ask stupid questions on the internet without anyone knowing who you are. Or frame the situation in terms of “You’re going to regret that next year when I’m better than you.” The point is, being a beginner is part of the process of going after something difficult.
In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell suggested his now popular concept that it takes 10,000 hours of specialized practice to become expert in a discipline. With this theory in mind, taking on a difficult challenge can seem pretty daunting. In fact, you may never become what is considered an expert. Well, that’s just fine. Your whole goal is to take on something really difficult and become as good as you possibly can. You want to be energized every day with the goal of getting better than the day before. You may spend the rest of your life trying to become an expert. That’s just fine. What you want is a reason to get up every day and be excited to keep on truckin’.
As you age, you will have to accept that being an expert is unreachable. In fact, your skill level will probably go backwards. But, your self-esteem will still march forward.
In April, I quoted Seth Godin, “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”
Good luck in your new life.
