The Easy Things about Hard Things

I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life — accomplishments or experiences that most would find difficult to achieve or endure. I won’t go into too much detail here, but you can check out my website for more christinecorbettmoran.com. Everything from two degrees from MIT, multiple books, multiple children, running multiple startups while completing a Ph.D., almost a year in Antarctica, and more.

I have two major takeaways from this

1. Hard things are often easier to achieve than easy things. People are willing to pave the wave for an ambitious goal. There are fewer people trying to achieve it, so there is less competition. Sometimes when I’m having trouble achieving something, I think of ways to make a goal more ambitious rather than easier.

2. Doing hard things is a muscle. I often start a new goal or experience with the thought: I’ve done X before, so I can surely do Y. Then upon success, X and Y are usually different enough that Y can then be used as a building block for trying to achieve Z. Experiences and accomplishments that are difficult for others compound, and make it easier to devise a life of my own making.

Accomplishing something difficult or enduring a difficult experience are things which bring meaning to my life. Each experience builds on another, and it’s always fun to see what I might try on for size next. I think of these as lego blocks for building my dreams, and it’s unusual for me to come across anything I want to do or achieve that is just too daunting at this point, as I’ve spent a lifetime building up to what’s next.