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You may stop reading this article if you hate the word struggle. But if you are committed to achieving goals, then this article will act as a stepping stone in your success journey.
“Success is giving 100 percent of your effort, body, mind, and soul to the struggle.” – John Wooden
Why is it that so many people are clearly not living courageous lives? They know they should speak up for themselves. But they don’t. They want to face their fears and take some risks. But they don’t. They tell you they’re going to be bolder, strive for greater dreams, and help people in significant and noble ways. But they don’t. Why?
Act of Courage
Many people talk about vision and big dreams, about wanting to live an exemplary life and make a difference. They are also having vision boards. But they wouldn’t do anything about it. They usually lacked any sort of response or plan, never understanding that one act of courage is better than a hundred vision boards!
So what was the real problem, and what was the solution? The issue is really one of mindset. We’re less courageous as a society today because we avoid struggle, and that decision leaves us with underdeveloped character and strength—two key ingredients for courage.
Basically, we’re at a unique time in history, when more countries and communities have greater abundance than ever before. But in such blessings, there can be a curse—people can become resistant to struggle. Today, making any recommendations that would require real effort, trial, difficulty, or patient persistence is out of fashion. Ease and convenience reign. People often quit marriages and school and jobs and friendships at the first sign of difficulty. If you quit at the first sign of difficulty in your everyday life, what are the odds you’ll persist in the face of real fear or threat?
If we’re ever going to develop the strength that courage requires, we’ll have to get better at dealing with life’s basic challenges. We’ll have to stop getting so annoyed and start seeing the struggle as part of growing our character. We must learn to respect the struggle.
Struggle is a Hard Sell
Unfortunately, the struggle is a hard sell. People don’t want to try, so just give them easy things to do. People are lazy, hate challenges, and will trade growth for comfort and certainty. In the general media world especially, every “tip” and “hack” is framed so that it’s making life super easy, pulling us away from any pain or strain. Focus only on your strengths, because you’ll feel better and serve better. No need to suffer by facing your shortcomings; that would be uncomfortable and not worth the effort. Outsource everything, because there’s no value in learning real skills. Hack your diet with a magical pill so you don’t have to change your horrible eating patterns.
We’re surrounded by memes and media and influencers telling us we’re not supposed to struggle, that life should just be an easy flow or that we’re on the wrong track. Imagine what that’s doing to our abilities. Imagine what that is doing to our odds of ever taking courageous action.
If we keep telling people to do what’s easy, why would they ever think to do what’s hard?
The good news is, people worldwide are discovering that all these quick fixes, hacks, and silver bullets aren’t enough. People are beginning to remember something they knew already: To achieve excellence requires hard work, discipline, routines that can become boring, the continual frustrations that accompany learning, adversities that test every measure of our heart and soul, and, above all, courage. High performance requires real intention and the mastering of complex habits.
Older Generation Wisdom
I’m sure older generations could tell us about a time when the struggle wasn’t something to be avoided. They knew that living a comfortable life free of all difficulty and all passion was never the goal. They didn’t expect to have a smooth ride. They would tell us that toil and struggle are the fire in which we forge character. They championed the ideals of getting dirt under your fingernails, working harder than anyone else would expect, and striving for a dream with fierce determination even in the face of hardship because those efforts made you a better, more capable human. Meeting struggle with poise and dignity got you respect. It made you a leader.
Forgive me if this sounds sentimental, but it’s nonetheless true. No one who achieved greatness avoided struggle. They met it, engaged with it. They knew that it was necessary because they knew that real challenges and hardships pushed them, extended their capabilities, and made them rise. They learned to respect the struggle. They developed a mindset that anticipated the struggle, welcomed the struggle, and leveraged the struggle into reasons to give more.
By meeting the conflicts and difficulties and outright messes of life straight on, willingly, we dismantle the walls of fear, brick by brick. This mindset, more than any other, is at the heart of my work. The alternative, of course, is crippling. Those who hate the struggle, or fear it, end up complaining, losing motivation, and quitting.
Research on Respect the Struggle
When we learn to see struggle as a necessary, important, and positive part of our journey, then we can find true peace and personal power.
Most recent research also backs up this idea of respecting the struggle. One of the strongest predictors we’ve found is that courageous people agree with the statements “I love trying to master new challenges” and “I’m confident I can achieve my goals despite challenges or resistance.” High performers simply do not dread challenges, failure, or the inevitable difficulties that learning and growing entail. Instead, they love trying to master new things, and they feel confident they can achieve their goals despite potential hardships. Talk to them about difficult times in their past, when circumstances forced them out of their comfort zones to perform, grow, or win, and they’ll speak of those times with respect, not dread.
Growth & Fixed Mindsets
Our findings align with decades of psychological research on people with a “growth” mindset. People with such a mindset believe they can improve, love a challenge, and engage with difficulty rather than run from it. They don’t fear failure as much as others do, because they know they can learn and, through hard work and training, become better. This makes them more motivated, more dogged in their pursuits, more resilient, and more successful over the long term in practically every area of their lives.
Those with “fixed” mindsets believe and behave the opposite. They believe that their abilities, intelligence, and traits are set, fixed, limited. They don’t think they can change and win, and that creates fear anytime they are faced with something that lies beyond their “natural” strengths and capabilities. They dread failure because failure would be a commentary on them. They feel that a mistake or error makes them look incompetent. If something isn’t easy, they give up. To illustrate how destructive this can be, research has shown that those with a fixed mindset are five times more likely to avoid challenges than those with a growth mindset. This jibes with what we see in high performers versus low performers.
If you are unwilling to anticipate the inevitable struggles, mistakes, messes, and difficulties of life, then it’s a rough road. Without courage, you’ll feel less confident, happy, and successful. The data confirms it. (Excerpt is from “High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way” by Brendon Burchard.)
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