The most important lesson I have ever learned in my life is simple but incredibly powerful: Do the hard things. This is a principle that will determine how you handle every challenge, dream, or goal you ever have in your life. The fact is, success doesn’t belong to those who are the brightest, the most talented, or even the luckiest but rather to those who are willing to do the things most people will not do: to do the hard things, the difficult things, the uncomfortable things, the painful things that stretch you to your limit.
When you resolve to do the hard things, the difficult things, you immediately give yourself a huge advantage over the rest of the world. Why? Because the majority of the people in the world seem to love comfort. They want the prize but not the process. They want to grow spiritually or professionally but not the grind. The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful usually lies in one decision: the decision to do those things that others find too difficult. It may be to get up early to study, to confront personal fears, to start that business, or to say no to distractions, but the hard work that requires great effort that no other endeavor can match.
Difficult things do not break you; they make you. Refining and improving your faculties, your self-discipline, self-confidence, etc., depends on your pushing yourself to do the hard things. Every time you do this, you build up your will power, your self-discipline and your self-confidence. You start to realize that the limits you thought existed never existed at all; they were merely figments of your imagination. When you face difficulties, you no longer feel uncomfortable, but you start looking for the challenge in them. Instead of running away from difficulties, your thought is of finding the opportunity to grow that you have been given.
The people who are successful in this life, are not necessarily the most gifted. They are the ones who have ever stayed in whenever others have given up. They know that the hard things, the necessary things — the discipline, the persistence, the gratification of present pleasures, the follow-through, the concentration when your efforts are unperceived — are what separates the winners from the dreamers. It is very comfortable to move in the area we call the comfort zone, but nothing ever grows there. Growth occurs only after effort and struggle have taken place.
So if you want to be successful, if you want to be not just above average but far above the average, learn to do the hard things. Train your mentality to learn to enjoy the efforts it takes to attain the goals that are worthwhile. Take the hard road, for that is where you will find strength, success and purpose. Every difficult thing you accomplish makes the next one easier, not because the struggle of life gets any lighter, but because you become stronger.
Furthermore, the fact is that doing the hard things in this life is not merely a question of success or failure: it is a matter of your becoming the sort of person who can handle anything that life sends him. And that is what comes as the most important assistance toward labelling oneself as ‘different’ from the others. The end result is that you are no longer, then, just above average. You are far beyond the dreams of most people in life, who merely react to things and do not face squarely the issues that present themselves.