In a recent post, I encouraged everyone to choose things that are hard in the short-term, which lead to easier long-term results, rather than choosing things that are easy in the short-term, which lead to harder long-term results.

In earlier posts (here, here, and here), I have encouraged everyone to make things as easy as possible so that you stick with them and establish good habits.

So, which is it? Hard or easy?

It’s both.

It’s hard and easy.

We want to think in decades, but act in days. We want to make good decisions about important things that will make life easier for us in the long-term. That often requires making hard decisions in the short-term that require difficult actions. However, if the actions are too hard, we might get overwhelmed, give up, and not keep doing them. Our desire and motivation won’t be enough.

For our good intentions to translate into consistent actions toward the long-term goal, the daily actions need to be easy.

The goal is to do hard things, but to make them as easy as possible.

The short-term hard decision is to become someone who eats healthily.
The short-term easy action is to drink one glass of water a day.

The short-term hard decision is to become someone who exercises regularly.
The short-term easy action is to do 10 push-ups a day.

The short-term hard decision is to become a reader.
The short-term easy action is to read for 5 minutes a day.

The short-term hard decision is to write the book you have been dreaming about writing.
The short-term easy action is to write for 5 minutes a day.

By consistently doing easy things, our capacity grows. We have evidence of our commitment. We have confidence. We can easily do more.

Now, not only are we drinking water each day, but we are drinking fewer soft drinks.

Now, not only are we doing 10 push-ups, we are walking around the block.

Now, we can read for 10 minutes.

Now, we can write for 10 minutes.

The goal is to do hard things. The path to accomplishing those hard things is easy steps that grow in difficulty as we grow in capacity and belief.

Easy and hard.

 

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