If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great. – Tom Hanks
What does that mean?
I’ve heard this said a couple different ways, including “if it was easy, …” and “The size of the obstacle is the measure of the sweetness of the victory.” As the climbing of a mountain is much more difficult, it is also much more rewarding than surmounting a small hill. So it is in life. While all successes are to be celebrated, it is the difficult tasks that are the most celebrated, and the most remembered. And the difficulty of the struggle is what makes people recognize the accomplishment as great. That is why athletes at the Paralympics or the Special Olympics are celebrated despite performing at a level that is not normally a cause for celebration. That it is so hard for them to achieve even those meager results, that is the reason for the celebration.
Why is struggle important?
While a life of reclining on a lounge and having someone feed you peeled grapes all day might sound like fun, it would probably get old after a few months, a year tops! Most people are not built for that kind of life. The human spirit seems to relish in doing the difficult, and even the impossible. Remember, the impossible of yesterday is the ho-hum of today. From message runners, to horse messengers, to telegraph to land-line phones, to car phones, to portable phones, to cell phones, to text message. And that’s just the last century or so.
We, as humans, seem to thrive on doing the difficult, on measuring our worth based on what we can achieve. In sports, business, or philanthropy, we are always trying to beat our best, or the next person, as the case may be. In sports, look at the reaction to a championship team, or an Olympic winner. In business, we have awards at local, county, region and state levels from many different organizations that recognize the most outstanding achiever of the year. In philanthropy, there are also dozens of organizations at several levels which recognise the people who have done the most, helped the most or achieved the best results. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be extraordinary. And extraordinary is just another way of saying great.
Where can I apply this in my life?
Well, you probably have all kinds of challenges in your life. Now would be a good time to write a few of them down. Try to get a few different size challenges, from fairly easy to really tough. Let’s start with an easy one. For me, in my martial arts class, I was having real trouble with a particular roll. It took about two months to get it right, and I still blow it from time to time. It looks so easy, but it was hard for me. Most of the others in the class probably didn’t even notice, but I did a little happy-dance when I finally got it to work properly. For me, it wasn’t a trivial thing to do. It wasn’t truly difficult, but it was a great thing for me (by doing it wrong, I kept re-injuring my shoulder).
Take that easy task and figure out what you need to do to make it happen. Yeah, it’s time to do at least an outline if not a full plan, backed with strategy, fortified with tactics, and revisited & revised using courage and intelligence. The bigger the task, or the more unknowns there are, the more you will be rewarded by a detailed plan. Now that you have a plan of some sort put together, what is the first step and when should you take it? The answer to the latter is, of course, right this moment. Nothing builds momentum like action, immediate positive action. Bigger is better, but do SOMETHING, do it NOW! Keep track of your progress, and plan a bit of a review at the end.
Why would you want to review at the end of the accomplishment? To help you understand how hard it was. Go back over the plan and recall how confused you were at how to finish some of the tasks, how many attempts it took to finish, how much research it took to find the key that made the difference. Recognise just how hard it was to accomplish the task and take a moment to bask in the greatness that is due you for your accomplishment. Just don’t expect the whole world to rejoice with you when you’ve finished cleaning the closet. 8)
The larger challenges follow the same path, but will likely take more effort, time, resources and guts. But the bigger the challenge, the harder it is to accomplish, the greater the victory will be. Sometimes the accomplishment is celebration enough, but if it was a group effort, with help from others, it might be worth a mention to the others, or even a small celebratory dinner or party.
Keep doing the hard things, and have a great life!
From : Twitter, @DavidRoads
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tomhanks161990.html
