The strain of lifting a heavy weight. The huffing and puffing as you run the last mile. The struggle to keep your mind from wandering during meditation.
Wrestling with confusion as you learn a new math topic. Facing the discomfort of a cold shower. Resisting the temptation to eat during a fast.
These things might not feel good, but they are good.
The point of doing these things is to be challenged. It’s about building muscles, both mental and physical. If the tasks were easy, they wouldn’t force you to improve. Remember, it’s the struggle that makes you stronger.
So the fact that it’s hard isn’t bad. It doesn’t mean you’re bad at this. There’s nothing wrong with you.
Because it’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard.
I’m reminded of President Kennedy’s speech announcing that we would go to the moon:
“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”1
1 President John F. Kennedy. “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort.” Houston, Texas. September 12, 1962.