This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from Leslie.
I have a question about understanding the difference between “hard work” as a limiting belief—versus when the thing you need to do IS hard work. I struggle a lot with this. I resonate with the story of the fly beating itself against the window (from the book, You Squared). Just “Work, work, work, work harder.”
But I also know that sometimes you have to do something that’s uncomfortable or unpleasant to get to the next level. How do you tell the difference between the two? How do you tell when you’re in that old belief system of “working hard”—versus when you do just need to do something uncomfortable or unpleasant in order to grow?
Great question. You can usually tell by looking at whether or not you’re repeating the problem.
It’s true that sometimes we all have to do things at certain times in our life that we don’t necessarily like doing. But doing those things gives us information about ourselves. We learn that we don’t like to do those things.
So, if we don’t change that going forward, then we’re going to repeat the problem over and over again.
I like to use the word “diligent” as a point of separation in a person’s mind. We all have to work diligently, but we should be working diligently on the things we LOVE to do.
The moment we come across something we don’t like doing, if it’s a one-time thing, it’s probably no big deal. But if we’re consistently doing that thing our life or our business, then we need to change it. It’s our responsibility to change it if we don’t like doing it.
However, the bigger problem is when “hard work” takes over your ideology in your mind—and you start making things hard because you’ve associated “hard” with being a good person. Most people go through life in this way, making everything way more difficult than it needs to be—because they got praise for “working hard.”
When something simple or easy shows up in your life, you’ll end up complicating it. Why?
Because the idea of something being “simple” or “easy”
doesn’t equal you being a good person.
I’ve done this myself. There was a time when I really wanted something and I kept going after it, in the same way every month, with terrible results. I asked myself, “Why is this so difficult? This should be way easier than this.”
I realized, “Okay, I must be making this hard. How am I making this hard?” And then I got really honest with myself. That’s how I first broke through it.
Many of the clients I’ve worked with had a similar experience. You don’t realize your behavior of making things hard, until you question it yourself. That’s why I tell everyone success is actually easy and you were born to be a success.
If something starts to become really difficult, and it keeps repeating itself, then something is off. Ask yourself: “Am I making this difficult? If so, how am I doing that? Or is there something else I’m not seeing here?” Ask a deeper question.
David
P.S. Limiting beliefs (such as “hard makes you a good person”) often BLOCK you from creating the success you want in life and business. If you’re ready to start identifying and removing the limiting beliefs that are holding you back, then join me at my Art of Success Summit, on October 23-25th. Over 3 days virtually, you’ll immerse yourself in universal success principles, which is the first step in changing your mindset and how you see yourself.
To learn more, or to secure your ticket for the Art of Success Summit, click here!
