Do Hard Things
Last read May 26, 2024
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65 highlights.
While there are likely numerous subselves, researchers have identified at least seven so far: self-protection, mate attraction, mate retention, affiliation, kin care, social status, and disease avoidance.
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A group of scientists found that coping statements were more effective when they were verbalized.
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“It’s easier to give advice to a friend than to yourself” is an adage that most of us have heard, and it largely holds.
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The modern workplace is training us to lose control over our inner world.
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Tough individuals learn to match perception with reality so that they marshal the appropriate response instead of an exaggerated one.
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Opening oneself up to experience whatever thought or sensation enters our conscious awareness does not give that sensation power; it drains it of its control. Research shows that when we practice opening ourselves up to discomfort,
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The skill of being alone in your head is a foundational piece of developing toughness. And most of us are horrible at it.
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Listening to music or maybe even a podcast helps when replying to emails, but it impedes when completing a task requiring deep focus. When we need to expend our cognitive resources on staying engaged, even the subtle beat of the music in the background sends us to sensory overload. When effort is required, you need to be engaged. It’s why endurance athletes ditch the headphones to train the capacity to be alone in their heads.
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We need to develop the ability to be comfortable in our own head. To prevent defaulting toward filling that space by grabbing our smartphone or letting our mind wander uncontrollably.
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The goal is simple: put people in an uncomfortable space, one where their anxiety and stress rise and their mind searches for an out. Then have them utilize the skills we’ve discussed throughout this book to keep their mind steady, to respond instead of react.
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Regardless of the setup, the results consistently show that when we go broad with our attention, our imagination runs wild and our creative juices flow.
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A narrow focus doesn’t just leave our imagination empty; it plays a large role in rumination and depression
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That narrow focus blinded you to even considering other options or tools—and it made you either furious or drained, or both.
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Clutch required choosing; flow required experiencing.
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Those who persisted had different goals. They weren’t driven by fear, or guilt, or pressure. They didn’t keep working in pursuit of money. They were pursuing a goal because it aligned with who they were and brought them enjoyment and contentment. They were choosing to do the work, not being forced to.
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When some external reward or punishment was introduced, it shifted people’s motivational habits.
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Autonomy, competence, and relatedness serve as our basic psychological needs.
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He railed against conventional wisdom, declaring that joy could not be pursued and that happiness “should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome.”
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The second was in experiencing—nature, love, art, or anything that might create the sensation of awe and expand one’s perspective of the world.
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The third key to fulfillment would catch most off guard, but this particular audience was likely expecting it: suffering.
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When we have a purpose, we are able not only to endure and persist but also to provide a beacon that reminds us of what’s important and to make the right decision at the right moment.
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We promote those who are brash and overconfident, even though their work and results don’t merit the bravado.
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That’s how we traditionally view toughness: overcoming obstacles with a combination of perseverance, discipline, and stoicism. And if we’re honest, when the word toughness is mentioned, many of us picture a strong brute of a man.
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Tough Parenting
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Masculinity is so ingrained in our concept of toughness that if you ask a sampling of individuals about who represents a tough individual, a particular image dominates. More The Rock or Vin Diesel than a small female of similar prowess; brute strength with a large dash of confidence and bravado is how we like our toughest individuals.
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Authoritarian parenting leads to lower independence, more aggressive behavior, and a higher likelihood for substance abuse and risky behaviors.
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The authoritarian style creates the appearance of discipline without actually fostering it.
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What does a child who was taught to follow the rules unquestioningly out of fear do when a parent isn’t there to dictate his behavior?
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We’ve fallen for a kind of fake toughness that is: control- and power-driven, developed through fear, fueled by insecurity, and based on appearance over substance.
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real toughness is experiencing discomfort or distress, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action. It’s maintaining a clear head to be able to make the appropriate decision. Toughness is navigating discomfort to make the best decision you can. And research shows that this model of toughness is more effective at getting results than the old one.
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“The results of this study seem to suggest that the ‘keys’ to promoting mental toughness do not lie in this autocratic, authoritarian, or oppressive style. It appears to lie, paradoxically, with the coach’s ability to produce an environment, which emphasizes trust and inclusion, humility, and service.”
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Real toughness is about providing the tool set to handle adversity. It’s teaching. Fake toughness creates fragility, responding out of fear, suppressing what we feel, and attempting to press onward no matter the situation or demands. Real toughness pushes us to work with our body and mind instead of against them.
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PILLAR 1: Ditch the Facade, Embrace Reality PILLAR 2: Listen to Your Body PILLAR 3: Respond Instead of React PILLAR 4: Transcend Discomfort
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SERE training is based on the concept of stress inoculation. If we “vaccinate” someone to extreme stress, they’ll be able to handle it better. The first step isn’t to throw someone into the deep end of extreme stress; it’s teaching the skills necessary to cope with the situation. Without learning the skills, the second part—putting individuals in a harrowing environment to practice those skills—is useless. The key to stress inoculation, though, is like a real vaccine: you don’t want it to be so powerful that you overwhelm the system.
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Throwing people in the deep end doesn’t work unless they’ve been taught the basics of how to swim.
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We need to teach the skills to handle adversity. Development is not merely putting people through challenging times. As the military discovered, sink or swim doesn’t work.
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I surveyed dozens of authors, entrepreneurs, executives, soldiers, and athletes, nearly all having moments of wanting to throw their manuscript in the trash, debating ways to get out of their approaching deadline, or finding a hole to step in to end the misery of the race they are running. Negative thoughts of quitting are normal. They don’t mean you are weak. They represent your mind trying to protect you.
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Toughness is about making the pull for closure amid uncertainty work with you, not against you. It’s training the mind to handle uncertainty long enough so that you can nudge or guide your response in the right direction. To create space so that you don’t jump straight from unease to the quickest possible solution, but to the “correct” one.
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If there’s too large of a mismatch between our abilities and our goal, our motivation decreases.
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Whenever we set our expectations too high, we’re more likely to enter the “freak-out” stage of our toughness pattern. Instead of going big, set just manageable challenges.
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Tough people are self-aware, and they get there by embracing reality and understanding who they are.
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Shifting the focus toward process-oriented goals, such as the effort you can put forth, helps remedy these situations. It also provides vital feedback that allows you to grow in the future. When you judge yourself solely by what place you came across the finish line, it provides zero actionable information on how to improve in the future.
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The closer you are to a performance, the more you want to prime with what you’re good at.
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Our biology is already primed and biasing us in a particular direction before facing any sort of challenge. What direction we end up going is largely up to how we see ourselves and the world around us.
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Doubts and insecurities are part of being human. Even if you’re the best in the world.
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We’ve fallen for the Instagram version of confidence, emphasizing the projection of belief, instead of working on the substance underneath.
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True confidence has to be founded in reality, and it comes from the inside. It’s not in ignoring the human condition of experiencing doubt and insecurity, but coming to terms with them and what you’re capable of. It’s not in the elimination of doubt, but in allowing enough doubt to keep us in check, while being secure in the knowledge that we’ll find a way past the obstacle in our way.
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External regulation is defined as when “the sport is performed not for fun but to obtain rewards (e.g., praise) or to avoid negative consequences (e.g., criticisms from parents).” The five highest-ranked athletes in external regulation were five athletes who showed the least amount of improvement.
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If we artificially elevate our confidence, telling ourselves this will be a piece of cake or we’ve got this in the bag, our brain is constantly receiving the message that we won’t have to work hard to achieve our goal. If it’s supposed to be easy, why should we waste excess resources? When reality hits us, we jump straight to a freak-out. “What’s happening?! I thought this was going to be easy or within our capabilities,” our mind might think. Cultivating fake confidence creates insecurity for our minds to exploit.
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While we envision tough competitors and executives as having an unshakable belief in themselves, the reality is that the best way to be prepared for a challenge isn’t bravado but tragic optimism, a sense of reality in the short run but hope over the long haul.
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To develop true, inner confidence, there are four steps: Lower the bar. Raise the floor. Shed perfection. Embrace who you are. Trust your training. Trust yourself. Develop a quiet ego.
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You don’t raise your floor by developing an unrealistic view of yourself. You do so by taking a hard look at where you are in the moment.
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We may not want our chameleonlike identity of our preteen years, but who we are shouldn’t be set in stone either. We need to feel comfortable with who we are but be able to change. We need a secure but flexible identity. If our identity becomes set in stone, then any sort of threat to our inner narrative is interpreted as an attack.
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When the work is done in the name of getting better, of enjoying the process, of searching for mastery of the craft, then confidence gradually grows.
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Whenever evidence presents itself to the contrary, our ego goes into overdrive to rationalize, justify, or explain away why the opposite cannot, must not, be true.
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What you’re after is a dash of self-awareness and reflection combined with a secure sense of who you are. A bit of doubt and insecurity is normal. Too much defensiveness and protection are signs your ego’s too loud.
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“The way to greater confidence is not to reassure ourselves of our own dignity; it’s to come to peace with our inevitable ridiculousness.”
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Viktor Frankl noted that when he was in Auschwitz, another prisoner told him that to increase his chances of survival he should do two simple things: shave and stand tall. In other words, control what you can. Not too dissimilar from the advice that John Smith gave to his Jamestown colleagues. Leach believes that bringing some sort of normalcy to perilous situations “requires an appraisal that the person has, at least, some control over his situation, has not accepted mental defeat.”
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“That sensation of choice indicates a reversal of mental defeat and the reimposition of some personal control over the situation which is a key factor in recovery. . . . [Give-up-itis] is the clinical expression of mental defeat; in particular, it is a pathology of a normal, passive coping response.”
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All or nothing often leaves you with nothing.
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According to the theory of compensatory control, we try to establish order in the outside world in an effort to gain control in the internal.
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If you’re completing a task with a high degree of uncertainty and a low degree of control, creating a ritual can be a successful way to keep negative inner voices and emotions at bay.
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Alexithymia isn’t technically a disorder; it’s a catchall term that literally means having no words for emotions. It’s intended to capture those who struggle to describe and identify emotions.
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The better we understand the interoceptive signals reaching our awareness, the better our interpretation—and ultimately the decisions that come from them—will be. In
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Feelings give you a clue to what your body is predicting. A touch of anxiety signals that you may be a bit wary of what’s to come but you’re fully equipped to take it on. A sense of dread, and you know your body is preparing for the worst, ready to hit the eject button, and you might need to try a different coping strategy to make your way to the other side of the challenge.
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