Training Yourself to Do Difficult Things
Happy Monday, Tribe! I hope you all are as excited about this upcoming week as I am! Is it just me, or do Mondays sorta have a bad rep as the first day of the workweek? Like, there's that list you have of all the stuff you have to do during the week, and it can seem daunting.
But personally, Mondays are one of my favorite days of the week! It's hard for me to choose a favorite day haha, but on Mondays, I get to look at all of the things I want to accomplish, and it makes me legit excited. Like, it's not a list of things I have to do, it's a list of things I choose to do because they fuel both my vision and my present success! They might be difficult things, things that require a lot of time and energy, but if accomplishing these things leads to having an abundant impact and income, I'm in!
Today, I want to be your hype-woman and encourage you to embrace the difficult things you get to do this week, whether that's following up on old emails, having a hard convo with your partner, or stacking Zoom meetings! I've found that when you have a mindset that embraces positive change and progress, difficult things become exciting things, and you can tap into your fullest potential.
Build Your Mental Fitness as an Entrepreneur
It's no secret that becoming your own boss is a lot of work— you've got clientele to build, a marketing strategy to plan, and content to create. Plus, a million other things! If you're going to become a successful entrepreneur, it is absolutely necessary that you exercise that mental fitness muscle — and often!
As an entrepreneur, you're always going to have things on your to-do list that are going to be difficult. Nobody built a six-figure business by doing easy things. That just doesn't happen in real life. Difficult things could be things we haven't done yet or that we don't have a lot of experience doing. Maybe they're things that make us comfortable — like maybe you're not super comfortable with social media yet, and making an Instagram story feels unnatural. But if you want to live the life you want to live, you have to train your brain to do difficult things. We call this "mental fitness."
It all starts with changing your mindset and redefining the word "difficult." When something's difficult, we often label it as "bad," and then we'll do anything to avoid that "bad" thing. But these difficult things that you're struggling to do ... are they bad things? Take weight loss for an example: Losing weight is a challenge you have to commit to, and many people avoid this challenge because exercising and dieting can be uncomfortable. But by exercising and dieting, you are serving your body and your future self. You are literally giving yourself a happier and fuller life!
So when I see things on my to-do list that are difficult, I genuinely get excited and motivated to tackle them because I know that when things are challenging, they will grow me. In life and business, difficult things can hold you back, or they can propel you forward. You have the power to make that choice!
This week, I challenge you to exercise that mental fitness muscle and treat each difficult task as one step closer to achieving your goals!
The Importance of Understanding Your WHY
When building mental fitness, you gotta first know your WHY. What is your purpose in doing these difficult things? What present and future are they fueling? What are you trying to create, and what is the intent behind every decision you make?
It's sad, but a lot of people go through this life not ever asking themselves, "why?". People stay in jobs they don't like, with people they aren't meant for, and never tap into their full potential. BUT if you're listening to this podcast, I know for sure you aren't one of those people!
When you're faced with challenging tasks and you're feeling unmotivated, return to your "why." Why do you get up in the morning? What is the purpose of your business? Who are you trying to impact? And why is all of this important to you and to the world?
Motivation is not something that has to come and go. It's something that can stay permanently when you consistently remind yourself of your WHY and your purpose. If you don't remind yourself of your "why," then those difficult tasks become roadblocks that push your further back and not forward.
Finding your why often starts with making goals, so let's talk about little about the different goals you need to set and they are at the core of motivation and inspiration.
The Purpose of Having Multifaceted Goals: Lifestyle, Impact, and Revenue
In the Impact to Income Academy, I start by asking the question, "What are your multifaceted goals?" This includes everything from revenue goals to impact goals. So, you want to make $250,000 a year? Hell yeah, let's do it! Easy! But what's underneath that goal? What does that mean to your family? What does that mean to your lifestyle? What does that mean about the person you want to become?
Let's set the lifestyle goals before we get to revenue. Then, let's set those impact goals: What impact do you want to make on this world? Do you want to donate a charity and help people suffering from poverty, starvation, or lack of education? These goals help you see the bigger picture of your company and fuel your motivation like nothing else!
Here's an example to illustrate the picture. So, when I was a teacher, people used to ask me about the hard conversations I had with parents or other teachers. They wanted to know how I trained myself to have difficult conversations. Here's the thing: If it's about the child and their success and happiness, then it's not a hard conversation.
Now let's take that into the business sphere. If everything you do is because of your family, the generational future you're building, and your lifestyle of freedom and abundance, then are those hard tasks really difficult? When you allow your "why" to be rooted in those three goals - lifestyle, impact, and revenue - then your business life becomes fundamentally easier. This is when you show up unapologetically to grow your impact, scale your income, and live the life that you want to live.
Mondays are the Best Days (and so is every other day)
I hope you feel empowered and motivated on this beautiful Monday morning. And if you aren't listening to this episode on a Monday, then I hope you feel the same way, because every day is an opportunity to pour into your gifts and make positive change happen!
Here's my question for you this week: Are you training yourself to do difficult things, or are you just skating by doing the easy stuff?
I hope that this episode lit a fire within you to embrace an abundant mindset and tackle the difficult things in your life. As always, if you loved this episode, share it with someone you think would benefit from it! Because here's the wild thing about the world we live in right now. I found my two mentors, Chris and Lori Harder, years ago because a good friend of mine shared their podcast on her Instagram story. Flash forward years later, and they've completely changed my life for the better.
When you share something that's impacted you, you become a leader and also impact people's lives. So if this episode or any of my episodes impact you, then please share it with others and tag me (@thejennkennedy) so we can all see the positive impact continuously live on! You all are AWESOME. Go tackle some hard things today and have fun doing it!
