You often hear that start-ups are difficult. Or that a particular situation at work is difficult. Difficulties are things we usually try to avoid. But in that’s simply not always possible when running a start-up, where “difficult” things happen every day. So let’s take a closer look at “difficult”.
For example, writing this blog post appears difficult to me. For someone who is used to building technology, writing seems unnatural, vague, and insecure. I’m out of my comfort zone of seeing immediate and precise results that I do when I write code. So when I have to sit down and write a blog post, I find myself habitually checking email, or doing lots of little errands – in other words: procrastinating (and not Paul Graham’s “good” kind of procrastinating: (“avoiding errands to do real work”), but procrastination as avoidance, resistance. Resistance defined as “the refusal to accept or comply with something.” When we refuse to accept reality as it is. Why do we do that? One reason is habits. Habitual actions feel familiar and comfortable. For example, writing code is more comfortable and familiar to me than writing blog posts. At the neurobiological level, habits are like well-worn grooves in our psyche. By following them we are rewarded with a release of a substance called dopamine in our brains, which causes us to feel happy. By contrast, changing our habits unsurprisingly feels uncomfortable – it’s literally having drug withdrawal symptoms!
We also talk about “difficult” decisions – by which we often mean having to make a choice with high consequences. The “difficult” we usually feel in this situation is the anxiety of anticipation of making the wrong decision. The “Paradox of Choice” says that the more choices we have, the more agonizing the decision is and the less likely we are to feel satisfied with the outcome. Of course being an entrepreneur means having to make countless choices. So what to do? Daniel Epstein at the Unreasonable Institute suggests a simple method: flip a coin, and listen to your gut reaction.
Another flavor of “difficult” is fear of discomfort. But let’s be more specific, since “discomfort” is a vague word, just like “difficult”. Let’s take a concrete situation: let’s say you’re bracing for a “difficult” confrontation in your company, where you have to fire an employee. You’re dreading it; your palms are sweaty; your mind keeps playing out different scenarios of how the conversation would go, how the person would react, etc. What are you feeling in the moment when you think about it? Fear? If so, it’s perfectly normal – we have evolved to fear and avoid conflict: in the past conflict could mean literally being killed. But the interesting thing about fear is that the more we allow ourselves to feel the actual emotion, the less averse we become to it. But we need to really stop and feel it in our bodies, rather than thinking about it, making up stories about it, comparing it to other times we’ve felt fear, etc. The more we experience it, the more we get to know it for exactly what it is: just a particular sensation, albeit an intense one – just … this. And the more we get to know it, the more we can relax into it, the less we need to avoid it, and the more it can become our friend.
What if we could bring our friend along with us throughout our day? Yes, even to that scary meeting! What we could welcome it to the table, and say: “I’ll be honest, I feel scared to have this conversation right now…” Being authentic in that way might unlock unexpected possibilities and turn conflict into connection!
I started doing yoga over 10 years ago. For most of that time I would try it here or there, but it always felt difficult. Having to endure stretching in uncomfortable positions (I’m not very flexible) felt daunting. I would find myself checking out, daydreaming, looking at the clock, or doing the poses half-assed. Until I gradually understood that that’s exactly the point of yoga: to experience discomfort directly, to learn to be comoforable with discomfort! What was making it “difficult” was exactly that I was turning away from the physical discomfort – or rather the intensity in my body that I labeled “discomfort.” When I turned towards it, everything started to shift. The stretching was still intense, but I could learn to increasingly feel at home in that intense sensation, to get to know and relish its different textures, to appreciate how it melts away all other distractions and leaves me in the purity and intensity of life in the present moment.
By the way, I wish someone would have told me about this when I just started doing yoga. I would have been much farther along in my practice by now, if I hadn’t spent all this time avoiding it or doing it half-heartedly. How many other things like this do we miss out on in our lives?
So when people I work with tell me that something is “difficult”, I immediately want to ask them: “What does difficult actually feel like for you?” The more we can become curious about our actual direct experience (rather than stories about it), the more we can start to embrace the different textures of our lived reality, the less we need to avoid them, and the less “difficult” things become.