What Comes After: “This Is So Hard.”

How dominant achievement culture disconnects you from who you want to be. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that there is glory and virtue in handling hard on your own. But what does that belief cost you?

There’s a significant difference between growth and needlessly burdening yourself with suffering.

The ability to accurately discern which is which gives you the ability to spend less of your life in struggle, and more of it actually living in emergence, creativity, and pleasure. States that not only feel better than struggle, but are essential to feeling more alive. Moving through uncertainty and change while connected to who you really are is key. 

Achievement culture awards a specific trajectory: setting a goal and achieving it at virtually any cost. If you don’t achieve the goal, you’ve failed in some way. That’s why it can be hard to start the goal, gather neutral data, change your mind, and feel good about it. 

So, you follow the achievement narrative. When it feels hard, you stay the course. You push through. You override the feelings that tell you otherwise. The more you override, the more you disconnect from your body’s signals. It’s not surprising that doing all the “right” things leaves you feeling a little empty, disconnected, depleted; wondering why doing all the things doesn’t feel better. 

So you feel the need to do more. You reorganize. You calendar. You schedule. You restructure. You analyze. You push harder. 

There’s a reason the same strategies that helped you before you had a kid don’t work now. Or the same strategies that helped you succeed in law school don’t help you all that much in a law firm setting. You are not the same. Your environment is not the same. So who goes first? You? Or the environment that you’ve invested so much in?

No dominant cultural narrative encourages you to build a relationship with those signals that you override. If so, it wouldn’t be so hard to stay connected to who you are as you evolve and adapt through life. Those very human signals don’t support the dominant concept of achievement. 

But is that really true?

Wellness culture encourages breathwork, mindfulness, meditation. And all of those things are wonderful. I’ve been practicing and teaching yoga for decades. They all provide beautiful relief. 

Attuning to who you truly are outside of the achievement lens gives you access to a capacity for freedom that no amount of breathwork or trying harder can provide. 

Notice how your body responds when you anchor in a moment where you felt: “This is so hard.” 

First, imagine trying harder. 

Now, imagine someone coming to you. Maybe holding your hand. Maybe giving you a compassionate hug, and saying: “I see this is hard. You are not failing. Let’s do this together.” 

I have a hunch your body gives you signals for each, and softens with the latter. 

Imagine if all the energy bound up with trying harder could relax. What might that do for your health? Your relationships? What might that add up to over a lifetime?

This is hard. I’ve lived it. I see you living it. And you don’t have to do it alone. It doesn’t have to feel so hard.