Doing things that are hard produces results. Doing what you hate grinds your gears and spins your wheels.
Doing things that are hard brings satisfaction upon completion. You build self-esteem for having embraced a challenge and overcome it. Doing what you hate brings disgust and sucks your emotional resources. You may not necessarily lose your pride (unless what you’re doing is against your values), but you won’t gain pride.
Doing things that are hard facilities the flow state. I’m choosing to write this post right now. It’s hard because I’m engaging my brain in an effortful activity and it’s yielding an in-the- moment, active experience. Doing what you hate facilitates bitterness, disinterest, thus mental disengagement, and thus no flow.
But here’s the kicker: doing things that are hard correlates to doing what you truly love. Doing what you hate has zero correlation to true love.
I’ve been this mulling over since reading The War of Art: Pursuing things that are hard also comes with a continual desire to not do them. Because in the short term, it’s more pleasant to not lean into the challenge, to move towards the capital “R” Resistance. But where is this Resistance born? It’s born from the voice deep down that knows what you “should” be doing in order to leverage the greatest happiness, the greatest joy, and the maximal expression of your fullest self.
Resistance is born because it wants you to unleash your buried treasure.
Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything.
– Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
But if you actually hate what you’re doing, you’ll never sustain it. You’ll deplete your willpower.
You won’t garner accomplishment. You’ll garner exhaustion.
Doing what’s hard invests your resources to reap a harvest. Doing what you hate scorches your resources and puts you into psychological debt.
To find out which one is your doing, go do stuff, notice how you feel before and after, and get curious about why the feelings amount.
Why not go find out?
