I used to think that discomfort is your enemy. That that is not how you are supposed to feel. That everything in life should come easy to you, and if it takes hard work you should let it go and go back to comfort. I had big resistance toward " Hard Work ". I thought we are meant to enjoy our lives not struggle and suffer through them. Actually I still strongly believe that we are meant to enjoy our lives but there is a shift that took place in my consciousness concerning hard work.
You probably have heard or read many times somewhere that comfort and not discomfort is your enemy. Why though? How feeling good and comfortable could be bad for you? This didn't make any sense to me but despite of that I knew there was something to it.
I always admired athletes. Their determination, their will to achieve a goal, their will to work hard towards it. I loved watching films about them, read interviews and stories about their life's struggles and successes. I remember watching a lot of combat movies and just being in ave about how their bodies moved, but even more, how their minds worked. There was just something so powerful about them, and to my surprise I was really drawn to their hard work, because they really did work hard to achieve that level of excellence. I was admiring them in a way, like it was something so impossible to achieve for myself. But they were no superheroes. Just regular people working every day, working hard to acquire what they have imagined.
So how come I myself didn't believe in hard work and wanted everything to come easy to me, but at the same time I was so amazed about people who did just the opposite? And then I slowly started to realise that I don't have to chose one or the other. It's not all just about comfort and doing nothing or just about struggling your whole life. I was starting to find a balance between those two.
If you don't let yourself get out of your comfort zone how can you possibly learn something new? How can you possibly grow and evolve? That doesn't mean you have to struggle all the time. It means that you have to learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable once in a while. Struggle is a great teacher, because when things get difficult that's when you really can start seeing your character. It's no skill to be happy when everything is as smooth as butter, but it's everything when things get a bit rough. How you deal with them? How easily you break?
Struggle makes you stronger, it builds that character, and makes you mentally tougher. Of course struggle alone can't do it, it's need you to be there as well. Every time you go trough it you come out more experienced and next time that thing that seemed difficult will seem easy, maybe even funny. Isn't that great? I believe we need stuff like that in our lives. Situations that almost break us, or maybe even break us and somebody cries, somebody runs away, but it's up to us to get up, shake off that dust and do it once again. This is where the " Never Give Up " frase really fits in. This is where you can see what are you made off. And it's not about being so strong that struggle doesn't bother you, it's that you accept it and surrender and work with it, and most importantly learn from it.
It's really beautiful to notice that transition from :"I can't do it. It's so difficult" to "Ou my God, I did it. It feels great. I am so proud of myself." And for me I love to achieve that transition in sports. To build that body-mind connection. To become not just physically stronger but also mentally more advanced. And that definitely requires work. I would have to say, hard work. But what's interesting about that is that I found to enjoy it, the challenge of it.
Every time I exercise and it gets tough, and I want to stop, I remember how I struggled to do something before and then I did it, and I get that needed fuel to finish strong. To work through pain and keep my mind calm. Every time I follow trough I get more confident for the next time it gets tough, and not just in sports but life in general. and I push my breakage line just a little bit further and with confidence I say to myself :" I can do it!"
And then I realised I am no different, no worse and no better than the athletes I admire, because I have learned the same determination, the same will to achieve the goal and the same will to work hard towards it. And not to say that everything will be easy for me from now on or that I will never break in struggle, but now I have the confidence that doesn't matter what happens I can and I will do it again, and again, and again.
Of course struggle has many different faces, sport is just one of them. But every situation that is out of the routine and unknown can build that mental toughness if you don't turn yourself into victim and think that the whole world is against you, because if that is the case than you are in big trouble and might as well just kill yourself now. So don't struggle in struggle. Find ease in it and you can actually learn to enjoy it, and keep coming for more. I'm not bullshitting. Use it as a tool to become the best version of yourself. And please don't kill yourself, it was just a little unsuccessful joke.
Love You
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