Embracing hardship is a non-negotiable part of life. We can quit on our goals and tell ourselves we're choosing the "easy path," but there's a sneaky hard in quitting – staying exactly where you are.
As the specter of National Quitters Day looms, I tackle the temptation to join the ranks of those who've let go of their aspirations. This episode is an unflinching look at why the reward of personal growth is always worth the sweat and tears. So, gear up for a discussion that promises to keep you motivated and committed to your path, no matter how rocky it gets.
Embracing hardship is a non-negotiable part of life. We can quit on our goals and tell ourselves we're choosing the "easy path," but there's a sneaky hard in quitting – staying exactly where you are.
As the specter of National Quitters Day looms, I tackle the temptation to join the ranks of those who've let go of their aspirations. This episode is an unflinching look at why the reward of personal growth is always worth the sweat and tears. So, gear up for a discussion that promises to keep you motivated and committed to your path, no matter how rocky it gets.
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 44. I am back.
Speaker 1:
You probably didn't know I was gone, but for the last seven days eight days I was kicked in the head with a sinus infection. I'm not a huge fan of taking medication, but I went to the doctor after five days and got some steroids, got an antibiotic and within 24 hours I was feeling better. Within 72 hours I'm back. So that's what I've been going through for the last week and a half and I'm pumped because I'm pumped to record this podcast and be talking to you and feeling good. I tried to record this midway through my sinus infection and we went back and listened and it just wasn't there. It was off, the message wasn't clear. So I'm going to give it to you guys today Very clear, and I want to talk about choosing to do something hard.
Speaker 1:
We're still at the beginning of the year 2024, lot of new goals, lot of resolutions that we're committed to, and we know going after goals is hard, but not going after goals is also hard and I want you to get after whatever you set out to do, knowing that it's going to be hard and also knowing that if you don't go after your goals and don't go to achieve them, it's going to be hard as well. Mark Manson talks about this. He calls it your shit sandwich. No matter what path in life we walk, we choose, there's going to be shit sandwiches along the way. There's going to be parts that suck some of the time. If you're going after a goal to get a promotion or run a marathon or start a side hustle those kinds of goals we kind of know that there's going to be hard parts along the way. But there's also a shit sandwich when you don't go after your goal, when you don't go after your dream. It's that feeling when we're not living up to our potential. I heard someone say recently don't know exactly where I heard it, but they said whenever we're beating ourselves up, it's because we're making choices that aren't aligned with who we know we can be. We're not living in alignment with the person that we want to become. Whenever we're beating ourselves up, that feels like shit. If you ate a sleeve of Oreo cookies late last night. It felt good in the moment and it was an easy route. But on that easy route there is still a hard part. There's still a shit sandwich. There's always going to be some form of downside as we go through life.
Speaker 1:
The first noble truth in Buddhism is life is dukkha. Dukkha translates to suffering. A lot of the times people translate dukkha into suffering. I like the translation of dukkha being discontentment. It's not huge, massive suffering. It's that feeling of discontentment that can't be avoided as we go through life. It's just part of our journey. We can sit on the sidelines and get delivered our shit sandwich, get delivered the hard things that come our way, or we can choose where we want to work, where we want to grow and evolve, and know that there's going to be a shit sandwich along the way and expect it and be okay with it and move through it.
Speaker 1:
We've got our 2024 resolutions goals and we set these goals because we're currently discontent with something in our life. We don't want to set these goals thinking that we're going to be fully content when we reach them, when we achieve them. If you're discontent right now with the extra weight you're carrying around, you're still going to have discontentment when you go to lose weight, it's going to be hard to not eat a burger and fries and a shake when you want to, or not eat late at night when you usually snack at night. You're going to have some discontentment on either path. The path to losing weight will have discontentment and the path to staying at the weight you are will also have discontentment.
Speaker 1:
When I weighed 220 pounds, I hated going shopping. Going shopping for pants and a shirt. I just couldn't find the sizes that fit. They didn't make 38 30s in pants. Anything with the length of 30 was usually a 34, waist was the biggest, and so that was hard. So the idea here is that we get to choose which hard we want. Now what I think happens is when we choose a goal or a challenge, our brain underestimates how hard it's going to be along the way.
Speaker 1:
I think fatherhood is a really good example of this. Becoming a dad. We know that it's going to be hard. We know that we're going to lose sleep and that we're going to lose a lot of our free time and it's hard to parent, but I think for a lot of us it's still blindsides us how freaking hard it is to be a dad and the challenges that come up during fatherhood. I know, before we adopted our second daughter, that it was going to be a challenge to have two kids in the house, and I acknowledged it, knew it then, totally blindsided by the lack of sleep. Our first daughter was sleeping through the night at three months. Our second daughter, she, didn't start sleeping through the night till she was nine months old, which is only a couple of weeks ago. So fatherhood a challenge that we choose, a challenge that we know there's going to be some shit sandwiches along the way. And, like all of those challenges that we choose, there's also some delicious, good sandwiches along the way. Whatever your favorite sandwich is Hard salami on a toasted egg bagel with mustard. That would be mine. That is when I walk in my daughter's room and she's waking up in her crib and gives me the biggest smile in the world, and that sandwich is also part of our journey. So we want to choose our difficulty. We want to choose what hard we're going to go after.
Speaker 1:
If you want a solid relationship but you don't want to have hard conversations, you're not going to get the relationship that you want, and I know that hard conversations kind of suck. You got to be vulnerable. You got to stick around through that discomfort. I used to stay silent in those conversations, kind of nod my head, say what I needed to say, just to get the conversation over. But it sucks more to stay disconnected. All right to be vulnerable. It's saying what you're thinking. It's communicating how you're feeling.
Speaker 1:
I had a client that's working on this, starting to communicate this way, and when he did it for the first time he said he felt naked. Because that's how uncomfortable it is to try to communicate what you're thinking and feeling and that feeling of nakedness. That is vulnerability. It's supposed to feel that way and that's the hard part. That's the shit sandwich you get when you're trying to have a solid relationship.
Speaker 1:
And in my opinion, it's a lot harder to be in a relationship when things are off, when things are out of whack, than it is to learn how to be vulnerable. Yeah, it's a skill you got to pick up. You're going to have to mess up along the way, but that hard is so much more fruitful. It gets you the solid relationship if that's what you want, if you want to stop yelling and stop being so angry all the time around the house, around the family, but you're not willing to journal or reach out for support. Reach out for help. You're not going to learn to manage your emotions and learn how to slow down your reactions. So you're choosing which hard you want. You want the hard of yelling at your kids and then beating yourself up afterwards and hearing your wife give you the feedback that you need to chill out a little bit. Or do you want to choose the hard of slowing down, learning to step away from a situation? Take a few breaths, learn a little bit about where your anger is coming from? Both of those paths are going to have their own shit sandwiches along the way. Which one do you want to choose?
Speaker 1:
If you want more balance in your life but you're not willing to say no to people, then you're going to continue to have too much on your plate. So it's hard to have a ton of responsibilities and take everything on, feel anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed, and it's also hard to learn how to delegate and allow others to make mistakes If you don't make the change that you've been talking about changing. There's a sneaky heart in there and that's staying stagnant. That's staying right where you are in your comfort zone, because that comfort zone also sucks. There's quiet pain and shame and disappointment there. So we want to grow, we want to go after stuff.
Speaker 1:
And National Quitters Day yes, there is a National Quitters Day. Did not know this until last year, january 12th this Friday, national Quitters Day You're listening to this podcast. The guys that I've been talking to in this new year have ideas, have goals, have things that they want to create in 2024. You probably had thoughts like I want to get better at. I want to stop doing this. This National Quitters Day whoever made it up is making it easier to laugh off those goals that you set, to join the club of everyone else that quits that Quitters Club Also not easy. It's a different kind of shit sandwich and my guess is that whatever goal you set out to do, you want to do it. So know that there's going to be a hard part and keep getting after it. The hard part of going after a goal does not compare to the hard part of staying the same. You got it. Keep going, don't stop. Have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time.