We can (sort of) do hard things

There are hard things.

And harder things.

And then there are IKEA cabinets.

Whoever decided that assembling these is an easy job for the average person is confused. I attempted it this past weekend and can report a multilayered experience that did not include ease.

As I sat there on my kitchen floor half laughing, half crying, I remembered something I heard recently at an event.

I was in Phoenix at a weekend course with the legendary coach Steve Chandler. A fellow coach in the audience asked Steve about how to guide a client who was struggling with several hard things in her life. Steve answered with a question:

“What’s wrong with hard?”

What is wrong with hard?

I suppose…nothing?

Or, what’s wrong with hard is that we make it wrong. Our resistance to the reality of our experience is what creates suffering. It’s uncomfortable to do new and challenging things but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

In fact, there’s another useful insight I’ve heard along my coaching path:

When we do what’s hard, life gets easy. When we do what’s easy, life gets hard.

I can’t say yet that assembling my IKEA cabinets has made my life easy. My order arrived with several missing parts. It took me a whole day to complete two cabinets. Many remain in boxes in a spare room I’m conveniently avoiding.

And yet, I suspect my willingness to try, struggle, and potentially someday succeed at assembling my own kitchen cabinets will make future ​home projects​ easier. I’ll learn things in the process, or maybe ask my handy friends for help, which will be its own form of success.

What projects, topics, or experiences are you avoiding or criticizing because they’re hard? If you knew that taking them on would ultimately make your life easier, what would you do next?