Want to learn about resilience? In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness masterfully reshapes our perception of it. Here are the key lessons:
- Success causes us to narrow toward obsession, which helps in the short term, but backfires over the long haul. Cultivating perspective is the antidote
- You’re only as good as those around you. Surround yourself wisely
- Hard mindless work is easy. Hard intentional work is hard.
- Be deliberate on your work and recovery. We’re good at the former, not the later.
- It’s easy to major in the minors. Keep the main thing the main thing.
- Resist the urge to always step-in. Let people wrestle with problems.
- Coach people up. Teach them the skills. Then let them do their job. Resist micromanaging.
- Complex to simple. Chasing complexity fools you (and others) into thinking you are on the right path.
- Work on eliminating. A good book is made great by cutting the mess, not by adding more writing. Same goes for most things in life.
- Think ecosystem, not egosystem. Raising your whole environment up will life you up as well.
- Know when you are building and when you are maintaining. We can’t grow in every aspect all at once. Going into maintenance mode, allows space to grow elsewhere.
- Use your environment to help you. Create your own home-field advantage for whatever tasks you care about.
- Find the right state. Figure out how to prime yourself for the work you want to do.
- Counterbalance your strength. If striving or pushing is your skill, then you need to learn to be content. Our strengths often become our downfalls. Prepare for that.
- Learn how to turn it off. Don’t carry your work home. Don’t go nuts during the family monopoly game because you think you are competitive.
- Diversify your sources of meaning. If one thing is the only thing, you are setting yourself up to be fragile, to overreact to a loss
- Run your race. The comparison game never ends well. Focus on executing your process
- Sometimes quitting is the tough (& right) decision. Self-awareness & quieting your ego allows you to know when to quit.
- Create Space, Stay in the moment, Focus on one thing at a time
- When it gets tough, don’t fight, relax.
- Win or nothing is a projection insecurity. Life is about being secure in giving your all. Regardless of where that puts you.
- Consistency over intensity. It's about stacking week after week of solid work
- Under preparation is a coping strategy for stress. It allows you to protect your ego because you didn't 'try.'
- Failure is inevitable. It’s going to hurt. But the best transition to see it as informational, instead of self-defining.
- Practice gratitude. Take time to appreciate the good things in your life, no matter how small they may seem.