We want it to always it to be easy. Companies make billions every year on solutions, magic formulas, and devices that promise ease. “Easy” has filtered into every aspect of our lives to the point where who even know what that word even means anymore.
I hear that word all the time in my business.
What tech job is easy to get?
Which training program is the easiest to get through?
Is it easy to become a web developer?
It’s gotten to the point where I cringe when I hear job seekers use it.
Easy is subjective. It’s damn near meaningless now.
What is easy for you is hard for someone else.
Eating ice cream is easy… unless you have sensitive teeth.
Research is easy… unless you don’t have access to the internet.
Socializing is easy… unless you have social anxiety.
The list could go on and on.
When people say easy, they mean something else. Many times it’s a watchword for insecurity.
They really mean:
Can I rise to the challenge?
Can I do the work required to succeed?
Can I handle it for the long haul?
Since I am not a psychic, I can’t say if you can right now, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t build up your grit, drive, and know-how to build that career you desire.
It’s natural to want things NOW. We see the other people’s highlight reel on social media and read stories about overnight successes without fully absorbing the fact that most overnight successes are years in the making.
Even Beyonce didn’t pop out of the void fully formed, like Athena from the mind of Zeus, as the chart-topping phenomenon that the world knows and worships nowadays. She had to build up to it.
So will you.
That isn’t a bad thing. Its called a career path for a reason. You have many steps ahead of you.
REMEMBER: YOU ARE MAKING PROGRESS EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT
When you feel like its a slog to put one foot in front of the other, you are making progress. Not only are you making progress, but more importantly, you are building skills, resilience, and more. If you didn’t have the valleys, you couldn’t appreciate the peaks. And life would just be, well, a plateau.
Life is suffering, as the Buddhists say, and life is also joy. These two truths can exist at once. The flower grows from the manure after all.
This doesn’t have to be negative. Its a matter of what you are focusing on. Spank your inner moppet, learn the lesson, reconnect to your WHY then your WHERE, and get back to it.
One foot in front of the other.
You can do it!