Hello, Friends and Colleagues

I hope those of you in the U.S. had an enjoyable, meaningful Thanksgiving celebration. That can be difficult when the holiday involves families getting together, lots of expectations about how things should go, travel, and the kickoff of the shopping season for Christmas and Chanukah.

My day of hectic fun was extended into a week since our younger son came home from college last Monday night and brought a friend. I was cooking on Monday and Tuesday to prepare some food for them earlier in the week. Wednesday and Thursday I was preparing a couple of dishes to take to the two family dinners we attend on Thanksgiving. Then Friday I was preparing a fajita dinner with “all the fixin’s” thanks to the help of my older son and my younger son’s friend. Getting back to full-time work Monday was like a vacation!

The hassle was enjoyable and meaningful
All the prepping and cooking, coordinating different events, scurrying from place to place, and fun activities sprinkled in the mix wore me out. It was a challenging week, and some of the work was hard. But I enjoyed it. It was meaningful, and it was fun.

Challenging, even difficult. And hard to accomplish. That accurately describes big family celebrations for a lot of people. But they’re usually worth it. In fact, the challenge is part of what makes them more meaningful.

Misunderstanding struggle
This stands in stark contrast to messages I hear from some people who call themselves coaches, consultants, trainers, or teachers on self-employment, custom career design, or more broadly on life design. Some suggest that if you’re struggling you’re doing it wrong. If you find your calling or your purpose, they say, things will line up and just flow.

Trust me on this one. Things lining up and flowing sounds wonderful, and I hope it happens sometimes for you. But that’s not the path to a meaningful, enjoyable life. Struggle is part of meaningful and enjoyable.

Some Things Should Be Challenging

Years ago, when I was younger and more foolish, instead of a monthly newsletter I created a monthly e-magazine or e-zine, writing and publishing more than one article per week for a total of around 6 per month. I called that early vehicle “Chasing Wisdom.” It’s still on the web at this link. I must have caught some wisdom because I dropped down to producing one article per week, then two per month, and now just one.

I titled one of the sections of the e-zine “Striving and Thriving.” One of the more common kinds of articles I wrote in this section involved a profile of someone who created a business or career around what they loved and were making a living doing that. My profile subjects enjoyed their work and found it meaningful, but it still had lots of challenges. And the path to translate their business, career, or organization from vision to reality had been demanding. That seemed realistic and inspirational at the same time.

Unwilling to strive
I mentioned in a conversation with a group of custom career seekers that I had a section in my e-zine called “Striving and Thriving.” One of the women on that call recoiled – I could hear it. “Ooh! I don’t want to strive. I don’t like the energy of that. I want everything to be easy.”

She wasn’t the only one to express this conviction. Over the years I’ve heard it from other people on a change path, mostly those trying to create a career or business to allow them to work in alignment with their values, strengths, and core beliefs. I enjoy working with people on that path because it’s about self-leadership and self-expression. But I get frustrated when I run up against the belief that struggle is inherently bad, some sort of evidence that you’re doing it all wrong.

Is it a belief system misinterpreted?
There are a couple of belief systems that promote this thinking. The most common in my experience is the Law of Attraction. In my earlier e-zine I wrote an article about some of my problems with how people apply the Law of Attraction. That article is here.

The other belief system, less common and resulting in less resistance to struggle, but still relevant, is Buddhism. In Lovingkindness meditation, there is a phrase where you extend the wish, or the hope, or the blessing that someone have an easy path: “May you live with ease,” sometimes extended to “May you live with ease of wellbeing.”

There is a strong ethic of letting go of the struggle in Buddhism. This is a great idea, because it’s about accepting what is. But I’ve heard people interpret this to mean that when something feels like a struggle you’re doing it wrong. I think that’s probably a misinterpretation, but I’m not a Buddhist teacher or scholar. Nor a Law of Attraction scholar. In fact, I’m probably stepping on toes by challenging metaphysical belief systems. But I see where these beliefs, I believe out of context, can lead people astray.

Accepting challenge
Here’s what I have learned. Struggle is relative. When I’m tired and want to go to bed and realize the dishwasher is finished and the sink is full of dirty dishes, it feels like a tedious chore to unload the clean dishes and then load up the dirty ones. When I’ve been moving through a series of tasks to help get the house ready for guests, unloading the clean dishes to make room for the last load of dirty dishes – until after we all eat – feels like a victory. It’s the exact same behavior requiring the same exertion of effort. But it’s a very different experience.

I don’t advocate struggle for the sake of struggle. Stoicism is overrated, and while challenge does build character, I think intentionally making things challenging will not build your character. In fact, it might undermine it with unhealthy expectations. Let things be as easy as they can be. Embrace and celebrate easy when it comes your way.

Easing the way
In service of making things easy, learn from others. Model best practices. Get guidance from a friend, a mentor, a coach, or a counselor. Things won’t always be easy. But they can often be easy-er.

Embracing the struggle
But embrace the fact there will be challenges, and sometimes they will be difficult. Remember why we have the saying that “anything worth having is worth fighting for.” If it is your desire, and you have prioritized your life so you can commit to it, you are showing that you value it. If you don’t commit, but only say “I’ll take it if it comes easy, but otherwise no thank you,” I suggest it may be time to get curious about how much you value it.

Passion and enthusiasm make the challenge seem relatively smaller and the struggle lighter. It doesn’t make the tasks easier, just less odious and possibly more enjoyable.

Commitment agrees in advance that things being difficult and challenging is not a reason to avoid them. Again, they can become easy-er, but I don’t believe everything can be easy. And usually it’s not the situation or the project or the work requirement that changes from hard to easy – it’s your mindset and your moodset.

There’s value in facing difficulty
Here’s one of the most important things about hard times. Research shows that we value what we put our effort into. We find meaning sometimes through facing hardship. We find what is important to us based on what we’re willing to endure. We feel the rush of accomplishment when what we achieve is difficult.

If I had a magic wand and took away your struggle, I would take away your need for commitment. And a lot of your experience of meaning. And part of your ability to discover purpose. If I took away your struggle, your life would start to feel empty.

Flow is temporary, not a lifelong goal
Yes, it’s true that when we work from strengths, aligned with values, and energized by passion we can get into a place of flow, where things do seem easier and it just feels “right.” But we don’t stay in flow forever. We can design work and personal life so that we’re more likely to be doing things that get us into flow. But you’re not going to wake up in flow every morning and flow through a resistance-free day.

Even if you can have such an ideal day once in a great while, It’s just not going to happen every day. If you have such a day, savor it and drink it in and immerse yourself in gratitude. But use that experience to fortify your resistance for the next day, when things will be hard again, you’ll have to rely on commitment because joy will be hard to feel, and the tasks you face will seem like slogging through tedious chores.

What you lose when you avoid challenges
There is meaning in enduring the difficult and unpleasant. People set a life goal of running a marathon not because it’s so easy and joyful to run marathons, although for a few people it sort of is. For many, it’s a physically exhausting drain. But the rush of accomplishment and the joy of knowing they endured is worth it.

There is meaning in taking on the struggle. There is joy in facing and overcoming the challenge. There is pride in accomplishment. That’s the path of growing and learning. Without challenge, without struggle, we don’t grow. When we’re not growing in our abilities and our understanding, we are atrophying – we’re just wasting away.

A life of ease, without challenge, would be like a sedentary life without exercise. It would leave you mentally and emotionally deconditioned, easily worn out by a little bit of thinking and easily overwhelmed by feelings. That’s not a life to aspire to.

May you be well, may you do well, and may you Thrive!

Take Care,

Stephen Coxsey, MA, LPC, PCC
Whole Life Leadership Coach

P.S. If you’re like me and don’t really like the materialism of the season, you might enjoy hearing a podcast I recorded with fellow coach Francie Cooper a few years back about the meaning in the many celebrations of light as the year ends. It’s available by clicking here.

About Thriving Edge News – Forwarding and Feedback

If you like what you read in Thriving Edge News, please tell your friends, family, and colleagues. You can forward this message to them so they can enjoy it, too. There’s a link at the top for them to sign up if they decide they would like to have their own subscription.

If you don’t like something you read or have questions about it, please contact me and let me know.

About Steve Coxsey

Steve collaborates with people to design and implement a customized Whole Life Leadership plan that promotes success, fulfillment, and well-being for themselves and the people they lead and influence. They thrive on a personally meaningful path and promote a culture of thriving wherever they are in charge, from families to professions, from small businesses to organizations.

Steve is a supportive ally. His typical clients have to juggle competing responsibilities in a variety of roles. They have a compelling vision of what they would like to create or accomplish as leaders in their families, careers, or businesses and are committed to turning their vision into reality. To make that happen, they develop the Leadership Agilities that will enable them to empower and direct themselves, design and guide meaningful work, and inspire others.

Would you like that to be you?

Are you ready for a creative, dynamic, collaborative partnership focused on turning your vision into results?

Get started with a no-risk 30-minute consultation. It’s complimentary, so all it will cost you is a little bit of time. You can schedule the complimentary call using this online tool. You can also call 817-416-8971 or e-mail Steve@SteveCoxsey.com to set up the call.

Click here for more information than you could possibly ever want to know about Steve.

Let’s Connect:

Resource for Sending Your Own Newsletter
If you would like to send your own newsletter to your audience, I recommend AWeber. It’s a user-friendly, plug and play format offering great support — from ideas on beginning your list to advanced techniques for building your connection with a well-established list. And it’s very affordable. If you sign up, I’ll get a commission.

Make Money by Recording Your Teleseminars, Podcasts, and Interviews
If you offer teleseminars, interview experts for your audience, or want to start a podcast, an easy-to-use resource for recording phone conversations is AudioAcrobat. You simply use three-way calling to dial in to the service and it records the call and hosts the recording. You can download the recording or provide a link for people to stream it or download it from AudioAcrobat. Add a payment system before granting access and you can make money on the recordings. Or offer them for free to people who sign up for your newsletter. If you sign up, I’ll get a commission.