Life is tough. There’s a concept that should be new to nobody. Doesn’t matter how old, experienced at anything, amount of money, support, well you get my drift. No matter what you have going, there will be difficult things. Tough people, maybe your in a learning stage of life and its making you grow, that’s tough. You might have certain relationships that are putting strain on you but you keep avoiding dealing with it because its hard. Something in your life will always be hard. But here’s my question for you: How many things in your life do you make harder than they should be?
I’m one of those people. I have made so many things in my life waaaay too hard. Most of the time, I just like to be too stubborn to let anyone help me even though I could figure it out much quicker with a different perspective. I used to get, well, I still do get frustrated when I make things too difficult. I’ve gotten much better. What are things that you make too difficult? Maybe asking for help because it makes you feel stupid or like you can’t do something. Would it make you look weak? Or do you make a lot of assumptions about everyday tasks and what other people expect of you that things end up being much harder than they need to be.
Do you worry about things a lot and start making up things and scenarios, outcomes that may or may not come true? Making things up like this and worry about things before they even happen is so very real. We do it all the time. Do you worry about how a big presentation will go? That big meeting? Or maybe you tend to worry about meeting someone and what they might think because of something you made up about yourself. Being worried about things before they happen, or just in general is a great way to make things much harder than they need to be.
So many people make things harder than they need to be. Here are some tips i’ve learned and practiced that help me not make things overly difficult:
- Prepare- If you prepare for anything, your confidence will be built in that skill so you won’t worry about it and make it too hard.
- Come up with a couple worst case scenarios for how something could go. If you can come to grips with those events happening, you’ll be fine. You might even survive.
- Research- information is power so many times. Educate yourself on what you’re doing, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions and build your confidence.
- Seek advice or help- we get so caught up in our own egos sometimes that we don’t ask for help when really that would grow a skill, a network, and probably get respect from someone for having the guts to ask for help
We’ll always make things too hard for ourselves as is human nature. If we can learn to do our own due diligence and use the people, tools, and resources available to us. (YouTube?!) We can avoid so much frustration and stop worrying so much about the things we cannot control. We need to learn to take action on the things we can control until we’ve done all we can.
I’ll never tell anyone to stop worrying, it won’t happen. But we can change the habit of making things too hard and cut out some of the frustration.