A key aspect of Eclipsing the Competition is understanding that what is “hard” and what is “easy” are merely concepts in your own mind. Reflective questions to ask yourself about this are as follows:
What do you consider "hard"?
What do you consider "easy"?
Of the "hard" things, which ones are blocking you because you think they’re too hard?
This is of course concerning things you want to do or achieve. If you don’t want it, then it doesn’t matter whether you consider it hard or easy. But if you want it, or even part of it, and consider it ‘hard’ or ‘too hard’, then it can easily get in the way of the mental endurance you need to go the distance -- or even completely prevent you from starting.
Ideas of hard and easy can influence how you regard:.
The activity itself - starting it or sustaining it.
Scalability of effort - how long you can do it, or how much volume or capacity you feel you can or can't handle.
The things you think you are “good at” and the things you think you’re “bad at” or “that could never be you”.
What you repeatedly turn down through fear, reluctance, or dislike, that could benefit you or that you even want to master if things could be different.
Consider public speaking. How would you feel walking out in front of an auditorium full of people? Do you consider that "hard" or "easy"? Why or why not? Do you see other people considering this "easy" and even enjoying it?
You have inside you a whole set of rules, instructions, limitations and boundaries that guide your general ideas of how far you can or may go, or what you can or cannot do. These are really only your thoughts on these topics. Knowing this is the first step in gaining an edge over those who think these are set-in-stone facts about themselves and their capabilities. They're not. You can change them through mindset, learning, and experience. Remember that if you argue for your limitations, you will certainly keep them. If you argue for your limitlessness, that's what you'll create instead.
The more you question “What is hard, what is easy?” the more you can understand that your limits are more flexible than you think. To recode hard into easy, reflect on the following questions:
Why do I think this is hard?
Do others think this is easy? How and why?
Do these same people think there are things I do that are easy, which they find hard? How do I feel when I tell them about something I find easy, and hear them say, Oh, that's so hard!
What, specifically, do I think is hard about this?
One way to work with this is to take the item and break it into smaller and smaller components, or smaller and smaller venues. Feel how this changes your conception of hard/easy. If you speaking before an auditorium is hard, what about speaking in front of a small group? What about speaking in front of ONE person? Now take the "easy" of that situation and scale it up as far as you can (speaking to two people, three, four...). See how this helps you connect more easily with the "easy" energy.
Remember that these principles of endurance assume you have the skills (or will build the skills), and merely need the mental game to either use them, or grow them. Your current level of skill or conditioning actually does represent a limit to be wise about - there's always a "you are here" on the map of your experience to consider. But you can move it, change it. It's not a limit, just a jumping-off point. Know yourself and your skills, and build them wisely.
Understanding Hard/Easy can increase your staying power when you hit a rough patch. The whole point of mental endurance is to be able to do longer, harder efforts that represent high performance. When you can tackle a task thinking, "This is completely doable, I can go the distance on this" or "I've developed a system that lets me do these difficult things with minimal effort", you've got the edge others lack. Coding it as "easy" also helps you do it more often -- and that frequency even MAKES it easier just by building your experience.
Experiment with these ideas. What can you tackle today that you've thought is "hard" and make it "easy"?
These Eclipse the Competition posts are part of an upcoming training series by the same name, focusing on mental endurance for professionals. Link coming soon if you're interested in hearing more about the full program when it's out!
Keep Growing,
Katherine Lieber coaches and trains on self-leadership, limitlessness, energy health, inner power, and healing the wounded professional to recover core vision, joy, and high-powered performance in the workplace. She is the founder of TitaniumBlue Leadership. Be limitless - be the hero in a world that needs you.
© 2019 Katherine R. Lieber & TitaniumBlue Leadership
Image by the author, the Focus Card "Mental Endurance" from the Serenity Cards Focus Series. © 2019 Katherine R. Lieber & TitaniumBlue Leadership.
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