“I need to have a hard conversation with someone today,” said one of my clients in a recent session. I could sense the weight it carried on him and he clearly feared the reaction it may bring. Who likes being the bearer of “bad” news? I could also sense his fear oscillating between fight or flight… It usually does, as we go into instinctual self-protection, seeking some form of outward adrenaline-fuelled pump-up to motivate action, or an easy escape, in the form of an excuse to not have to face it. My reply was simple… “What if we changed the perspective, from hard, to important?”
This brings up a deeper subject: why do we do anything? Surely, not because it’s hard. If anything, hard usually triggers avoidance. We do things because they’re important to us on some kind of level. If something is important, it means it “carries significant meaning or value.”
Next time something feels hard, change your perspective. Ask yourself a question. Why is this so important? If it carries significant meaning and value, you will feel a sense of purpose. You have your why… and if that’s powerful enough, the what becomes easy, quite simply because it’s powered by something important.