Do The Difficult Thing

Summary of the post:

- Doing hard things builds resilience and shapes who you become.

- Self-reflection and habit-building help make difficult tasks more manageable.

- Tackling challenges early can develop skills that make future obstacles easier.

- Attention to detail turns good work into great work.

- Embracing discomfort and effort leads to growth and lasting accomplishment.

Doing the difficult thing is, of course, difficult. That’s not the only effect it has on you if you choose to do the difficult task rather than keep putting it off. The act of choice has large compounding consequences for how you think and build who you are. You don’t originally see the outcome of your choice right away, especially if you have just started to make the wrong choice. Which is why sometimes the difficult task is hard to justify doing in the moment. Sometimes, even when the tasks are justified, you still don’t want to do them. It can take a good amount of effort to simply start the tasks.

Personally, I run into not wanting to do difficult things daily. But I am still able to get these tasks done even when I absolutely do not want to do them. How is this possible? Well, some of them are habits that I have built for myself, and others are the way I set up my day when I do the tasks. You must have a kind of insight into what you are good at holding yourself to and what you are not good at holding yourself to.

This accountability is difficult to form. Why? Well, it requires a level of self-reflection and being critical of yourself to find the problems and recognize them. Then you can either fix the problem or tailor your day around the problem so it is smaller. Which then will make the level of energy required to do difficult tasks less burdensome. This is how you can start to shape your habits to be more productive and make it feel like less work. Even though you are doing the hard thing, which is amazing.

Yes, the tasks can still be difficult and hard to do, but if you know yourself, you can understand where to slot these items in your day so that they are not as hard. Especially if you know this is the time of day you will get the best quality of work from a given challenging task. This can give you a little bit of a sense of a deadline, so you can feel a little bit of pressure to do the task. Otherwise, you know if you do it later, the ultimate product will not be as good. It is a good way to pressure yourself. A lot of times it is hard to start and do the thing. The work at the start is really hard to do, but once you start doing it, it will slowly become easier.

Another outlook on just doing the hard thing can be in terms of items that can or should happen every day. For example, if you just go and work out even for a little bit, it makes you have this habit or preconceived notion that working out must happen daily. Having this notion is important because it is what drives you to work out when you utterly do not want to. What we are doing in some sense is stacking up motivation or a reason to stay motivated.

There is another effect from stacking up motivation or doing the difficult thing, and that is having more leverage or the feeling of leverage to do the next hard thing. Also, you can really do the next item well if it is not as hard as the first thing you did, if you have more tasks to do. Additionally, other things can happen later in life if you do the difficult things earlier in life. Which will make the later items easier than they would have been because you have already learned the skills you needed. For example, if you learned how to study and manage test anxiety for the ACT in high school, it will help you manage tests in college. The content of knowledge in the ACT is helpful, but the true value, I would argue, is from the study and test-taking processes that you struggle through and then eventually succeed in.

On the other hand, not doing the difficult thing. Is like saying I will learn the hard things later. However, it is not simply this blunt because you may not know you are missing learning something when not doing these things. Especially if you are younger or have not experienced these hard tasks in each part of your life. There are a few details of specific skills that you will miss if you don’t do the difficult thing and try and do it to the best of your ability.

Doing quality work is important, too. Since there are additional details that you must capture to complete the work given. For example, you could cook a meal that is just ok, no spices or anything on your chicken. The meal is still good to eat, but it's not great. What is missing is the spices and the finer details of the dish. This is the same as doing work in college or most other tasks in your life.

Now, let's expand on this idea of detail. If you try to add it to your tasks while you reflect on whether it was good or bad, the change in the long run is that it will get easier, and other tasks in general will get easier. Because part of the task that you went through was like the part of another, and you are almost building a skill set by fully and completely paying attention to the details. I know that doing that extra detail is hard, but that’s why you need to pay attention to why doing the difficult things is important.

Don’t get me wrong, in my life, there are some things that I don’t do the hard things or add all the details. Because of these types of tasks, I don’t feel the need to get better at them. Ironically, like cooking. I just need the food to taste good. But for items that I have goals for, I do pay attention to the details and make sure all the hard things are done. For me, it's lifting. I have been taking creatine consistently and then stretching to stay healthy and ready to lift. Also, I make sure each muscle group is ready for what I am lifting that day. In terms of food, I just buy whole foods, but it is in a way that is as simple as possible to make and is not very time-consuming.

Conclusion

Choosing to do the hard thing is more than just a test of willpower—it's a deliberate act that shapes who you become. Each time you face a difficult task, you’re not only building resilience but also developing habits and skills that will serve you in the future. By reflecting on your strengths and weaknesses, and by thoughtfully structuring your day, you can make challenges more manageable. The details matter, and the effort you invest now compounds over time, making future obstacles less daunting. The willingness to tackle hard things, especially when you don’t want to, sets the foundation for growth, quality work, and a sense of accomplishment that carries into every aspect of life. Embrace discomfort, pay attention to the details, and trust that each hard thing you do today is an investment in a stronger, more capable self.

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