Jarrod Blundy writing in You (And I) Can Do Hard Things

Doing the hard thing isn’t always fun. It’s often not the thing you want to do. There may be many reasons for you not to do the hard thing. But there’s almost always a good reason that you should do the hard thing. And I hope you remember that you can.

A few months ago I read The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, and it introduced the concept of misogi. An ancient Japanese practice of doing really, really hard things. There perhaps should be another really in there because this hard thing should push you to your limits and have at most a 50/50 chance of being achievable.

In doing so you are said to reach a state of sumikiri — complete clarity of body and mind. This all seems a bit out there, I admit, but by doing really hard things you achieve the mythical ‘flow state’. One that Csikszentmihalyi describes as “making life more rich, intense and meaningful”. Indeed, as covered in the book, people are physically harder, mentally tougher and on sounder footing spiritually when they experience discomfort.

So yes, you can do hard things, and you should do hard things — and you will be better off for it.