How to Overcome the Difficulties of Life

You must accept difficulty and become an advocate for what you desire

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels

There’s an unsettling truth that most people resist — life is hard. Unsuccessful and unhappy people never accept this fact. Instead, they expect to find a shortcut to obtaining success and happiness and spend their lives looking for it.

No such shortcut exists, but that does not mean you must suffer to become successful or happy. It is possible to engage in challenging behaviors and simultaneously live a happy and contented life — if you adopt a healthy relationship to life’s difficulties.

It is essential to recognize that the descriptions like “difficult” or “hard” are constructs. These constructs have subjective and not empirical meanings. Difficulties are personal and vary from individual to individual.

Difficulties and hardships are experiential stories we tell ourselves. They have no inherent permanence, and we can alter our experience of them by changing our stories about them.

We all tell stories about the things we struggle with, and these stories fall into two fundamental mindsets. We can choose to be a victim of our circumstances, or we can choose to be an advocate for the life we desire. The philosophy that you adopt will determine your life experience, your actions, and your results.

How do a few people thrive in a world where success and happiness are hard to obtain? Successful people accept that life is hard, and they choose to be advocates for what they desire. Everyone else resists taking difficult actions and considers themselves victims of their circumstances.

Life is difficult for everyone

You can think of difficulty as part of the environment in which we all operate. It is an impersonal force that exerts itself on everyone, just like gravity. In this context, difficulty is neither good nor bad; it only exists.

Everyone has a unique combination of desires and definitions for how they gauge success. We also all have individual circumstances in which we try to fulfill those desires and obtain success. It is easy to see someone who has acquired something we desire and compare our lives to theirs.

We erroneously believe that the other person’s circumstances are the reason for their success, and we ignore the hard work and dedication they likely exerted to achieve that success. It’s easy to overlook the struggles that other people experienced on their journey to success. That’s partly because successful people don’t resist difficulty and don’t complain about their problems; they focus on the work required to move forward.

When you accept the reality that achieving success is hard, the experience of struggling can disappear. Most people do not lie in bed for hours each morning, thinking about how unfair gravity is. Gravity is an inescapable part of living on Earth, so we don’t waste time resenting it.

Yet, most people allow impediments to thwart their dreams because their difficulties victimize them.

Why you should embrace difficulty

Once you accept the impersonal nature of hardships and obstacles, you can begin to appreciate them.

Newborn babies cannot hold their heads up by themselves because their neck muscles are too weak to overcome the force of gravity. Through persistent effort, they eventually strengthen their neck muscles, allowing them to lift their heads. With additional effort and the acquisition of more skills, like learning balance, they ultimately become strong enough to crawl, walk, run, and jump.

You can embrace difficulty when you view it as a catalyst for change and growth. Hardships can strengthen us, make us more resilient, and help us expand our capabilities.

The victimhood mentality

It can be challenging to recognize when the victim mentality grips you because the mindset warps your view of reality. People mired in the throws of victimhood believe they describe their lives as they are and do not realize they are frequently making excuses.

The victim feels as though life is happening to them and that they have little or no control over the way their life goes. They allow their circumstances to determine their moods and their actions. Victims are concerned with short-term pain avoidance and immediate gratification.

You can tell that you are adopting a victim’s persona any time you refuse to accept full responsibility for your life. Notice I said responsibility, not blame. We often find ourselves in dire circumstances that are not of our making, but that does not mean we cannot (or should not) take responsibility anyway.

A victim complains about the unfairness of life and blames it for their unhappiness and lack of success. Complaining about undesirable events is as useful as complaining about gravity.

Here are some ways to identify the mindset of a victim:

• Not doing the work required to decide what will make them feel happy and fulfilled.
• Being unwilling to examine their attitudes and actions or evolve their thinking.
• Refusing to drop the insistence that life must be fair for them to be happy.
• Constantly comparing their life and circumstances to those of others.
• Indulging in feelings of helplessness instead of taking action to overcome problems.
• Being unwilling to make sacrifices to achieve their goals.
• Planning to pursue their dreams, just later, when they have more time, money, skills, etc.
• Asking for help or making an offer to the world once or twice and then giving up because the world did not beat their door down to help or buy their offer.
• Waiting around on others to do something instead of following up on their request until it is fulfilled.
• Refusing to pursue their dreams because they are worried about what other people will think or say.
• Refusing to try again when they make a mistake or fail.
• Allowing the little voice in their head to shut them down when it whispers doubts about whether they will be successful.
• Becoming resigned that they are stuck with the life they have.

Playing the victim in life has a certain appeal, as difficult and uncomfortable as it is. It is, in its own way, comforting in its familiarity. Victimhood is a known quantity, and it feels safer to sleep with the devil you know than to risk uncertain outcomes.

But living the life of a victim is not really living at all — it is merely existing.

From victim to advocate

Choosing to be an advocate for yourself and others is also difficult, but it can be an altogether different experience than being a victim. An advocate creates a vision for a possible future that will not be realized without action.

Advocates view themselves and the world, not as it is, but as how it can be. They accept that getting from here to there will require hard work and tremendous energy. Advocates don’t waste time looking for shortcuts or complaining about fairness; they determine what must be accomplished and put all of their energy and focus into the work required to bring about the change they desire.

Advocates accept difficulty and resistance, and they recognize that the most resistance will come from within.

Advocates master the following:

• Doing things that they do not feel like doing.
• Taking risks that are uncomfortable and sometimes frightening.
• Giving up something that they like and enjoy to pursue a bigger goal.
• Being willing to sacrifice their ego and reputation to fulfill their commitments.
• Taking a position that may be unpopular with other people.
• Speaking out publically for what they want.
• Postponing immediate gratification for long-term rewards.
• Ignoring what other people say about them.
• Trying again and again after failing.

The life of an advocate requires the exertion of physical, mental, and emotional energy. It is a difficult life, but that does not mean it is a life of suffering. The difficulty of being an advocate is about operating from your commitments instead of your feelings, emotions, and momentary desires.

The rewards of choosing to be an advocate

Whatever your desires may be, life will present you with difficult situations and circumstances. Life is hard, but you get to choose the flavor of difficulty you experience. Most people never understand that they have a choice in the first place.

Allowing life to happen to you and living a reactionary life is tantamount to choosing to be a victim. Blaming your circumstances and other people for your life may feel good momentarily. It may also let you off the hook for taking responsibility for the way your life is and isn’t.

But refusing to take responsibility for your life robs you of your power to set the direction of your own life. The victim must accept what life throws at them and hope for the best — that’s a very difficult life.

Alternatively, you can choose to be an advocate and accept the fact that life requires effort. There is a feeling of satisfaction and strength that can only come from acting on your commitments instead of your feelings. Imagine knowing that you have trained yourself to act on your word and your promise, regardless of what life throws at you.

That’s a difficult task worth undertaking!