If you scroll through Instagram today you’ll see post after reel of encouragement. You will see people sending up prayers for prosperity and telling you to manifest only positive vibes into your lives. Not me though. I am wishing you struggle and hardship and frustration. I am over here encouraging you to work through the pain, not avoid it. Get into difficult conversations. Volunteer to lead the project that is most certainly biting off more than you can chew. Jump into the deep end and swim like crazy. I want to encourage you, friend, but encourage you to go through the pain. And when you do, let it hurt. I hope it hurts. (If you’re ready for a face to face cold water coaching session on this… check out the YouTube Video)
Are we bringing back grind and hustle culture?
If you’re still with me after that, well done. Most people would have dropped off to leave a nasty comment by now telling me hustle culture is toxic. I can see the unfollows coming now because I’m glorifying burnout and ought to get a Care Bear Stare to get me back in line. If you’re cautiously nodding, I want to explain. I’m not suggesting you grind your fingers to the bone in a miserable dead end job. I’m splashing cold water in your face to remind you that growth only comes from perseverance through difficulties. You can’t grow stronger by only experience the light and easy times. You only get stronger when you are forced to rely on your strength.
Your brain is a muscle that needs to feel the burn
I explain it to my kids as their mind being like a muscle. When you let it hang out and only process the work that is easy, it gets weaker. Sure, today it can help you throw a ball, find a snack, and stair mindlessly at YouTube. However, when you push it to go to the next level, it gets hard. You want to be the starting pitcher? Now you need to push your brain to build strength.
It is more than throwing a ball, it’s knowing different types of pitches and being accurate enough to get them to each spot. It’s not just grabbing a snack that tastes good but the willpower to choose one that will fuel your body and help you build the arm and core strength you need to throw faster. It’s not just watching whatever comes up on YouTube but searching out pitching tutorials, workout and stretching guides, and then having the discipline to turn it off and take the action you need to take. All of that will hurt. It hurts your body to do the workouts. It hurts your little heart to choose a turkey roll up rather than a chocolate granola bar. But that hurt is worth it because you won’t get to that pitching line up any other way. They’re using that chocolaty snack to stop the boredom. They are using YouTube as an escape from the work. But they don’t have to.
What would it look like to embrace that hurt?
If you embraced the pain, you would make a change. You would reflect, prepare, and act. When you embrace the pain you turn what hurts into a reminder of where you’re going. You notice you’re not where you want to be on the field. You notice that you haven’t felt that soreness that means you threw consistently in a few weeks. So you make a plan. One that includes hydration, protein, a schedule, and advice from the experts. Then, you implement that plan. Every boring chicken and broccoli lunch is one step closer to the mound. Every new pitch you learn is one more tool in your belt. All of the balls you threw are one mile an hour faster to striking out any one who steps up to the plate. Its that pain. The pain you chose that makes that possible.
Before you hit that share button remember, I hope it hurts for you too
Maybe you read that baseball player analogy and thought, This is exactly what I’ve been saying to Jimmy this whole time! I should send him this as a reminder of why he should listen to me. Well, not so fast. Right now we’re talking about you experiencing some pain. And I know. There is pain that you’re feeling now. There are bills and housework and keeping those kids in chocolate granola bars and fresh fruit that is both draining your bank account and stealing your time. On top of that you have a boss that is always undermining you and that one employee who does the opposite of what you tell them.
So what do you do? Send reels to the group chat laughing about how you’ll never get that vacation? Do you scroll my IG to laugh at the characters knowing you have your own personal Karen in your office. I’d bet you vent about the newest fail of your employee in a private chat during that Zoom meeting with your work bestie and then again with your spouse as you get in bed. This is your version of escaping what hurts too.
Letting it hurt is about experiencing the pain, going all the way through it to allow it to transform you. When you use one of those escapes it’s like being 20 lbs overweight on your couch, upset that you’re overweight. If you just sit there you probably have the pain, but you’re not doing anything with it. If you get up and go for a walk you will still have the pain, but you’ll be taking the literal steps toward transforming the problem. Maybe you aren’t eating chocolate granola bars complaining you’re over weight but spending hours venting about an employee who isn’t effective is the same thing as sitting on that couch.
Let’s embrace that hurt at work
There is a way to change your life and use that pain to actually see a gain. You can reflect objectively on the situation, prepare to make a change, and take massive action to transform your circumstance. Let’s keep with this obstinate employee for this example. Reflecting objectively might look like saying, she put a ton of time in so I know the work ethic is there. She just did not deliver on what I asked. Now, you need to find out why. Which is a completely different mindset from the complaints you had. Now, you get to get curious about what the missing piece is. You’ve objectively taken stock of what she has and doesn’t have and you get to figure out how to get her where you need her to be. Suddenly, you get to be really curious about what the problem was. Did she understand the ask? Do I understand the ask? How much experience did she have going into this to get it right?
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not giving you that Care Bear Stare to be all excited about the project falling through, the deadline being hit, or whatever it is that your employee missed. There will still be rework to do. You, she, and potentially others will likely still have corrections to make on a short timeline and in the future. What I’m saying is that now you get to make those changes. You are putting yourself in an upward spiral for results. When you complained you perpetuated or even exacerbated the situation (you drew out the problem longer and likely made it worse) but when you embrace what hurts for yourself transformed the situation. Now you get to develop her skills, find new structures that might benefit everyone, and continue to master your leadership skills in the process.
What happens when you don’t feel that hurt?
Micheal Hopf said, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. There are always hard times that we can use to increase our strength. Some of those hard times are easier to avoid than others. When you skip the hard conversation. When you take on the extra work yourself and that chip on your shoulder toward that employee just grows, you might see some short term success. You can sweep things under the rug and take on more for a little while. The problem is you will never have built the discipline, the empathy, the curiosity and the communication skills to handle the bigger situations. Suddenly, you’re capped in the lower middle management role you’re in because you wanted to take the easy way out early.
But, when you embrace what hurts now, you start putting down deep roots. You start mastering the skills of a leader that help you weather any storm. Suddenly, because you can transform this employee’s results, now you’re someone who can manage whole departments. And you can do it with grace and patience because you expect that hurt, you want the pain of hard things, and you are certain you can stand tall and firm regardless of what is thrown at you.