“I know that 75 lbs feels heavy and you want to protect your knee, but trust me and try to lift it anyway.”

I’m swearing at my trainer under my breath (just kidding, Brandon!), but I know he’s right. The body doesn’t WANT to do hard things; we have to make it do them using our willpower and determination.

By our natural design, we tend to move toward the LEAST energy-consuming solution.

Wear clean clothes out of the laundry basket instead of ever folding them and putting them away. Pick up the heavy barbell using our strongest muscles, not the hamstrings or ankles that feel weak. Ghost that person instead of having a hard conversation.

 

gif of a corgi laying on the ground pushing a ball in a small circle with its front leg not moving any other part of its body

Dis fetch, right?

Doing the easy thing seems efficient in the short term, but it’s NOT effective for change.

As I’ve seen with my fitness journey to rehab my knee, doing things the easy way and defaulting to the least amount of pain doesn’t make anything change. In fact, over time, it convinces us we have limited choices and makes our world feel smaller.

We have to move toward what feels hard in order to grow. It might feel scary and even “wrong” sometimes — that’s what’s tricky about change.

Just like I rely on my trainer’s reassurance that this new hard move isn’t going to injure something, my clients and students want to know that they will be okay as they tell their pushy parent “no” and breathe through the inevitable feelings of sadness or guilt.

What is one small, hard, but good thing you can do this week to make your life a little bit better?

Not a huge list, please.
Just. One. Thing.

Let’s play with choosing that, and then breathe and see what happens.

 

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