Mindset - Choose the Wrench

I heard a story of a guy who lived near the ocean in northern Scotland. Year-round, the temperatures were in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. One summer day, the temperature hit an unusually high of 60. When he walked out of the house, he saw the beach was completely covered in people playing in the water and lying on the sand in their bathing suits. Where I’m from, a 60-degree day would be cause for pants and a sweatshirt, not sunbathing on the beach.

Everything is relative.

The human brain doesn’t process things in absolute terms. It processes events in relation to other events we’ve experienced.

60 degrees felt as warm as a blanket to the people in the Highlands because it was the warmest temperature they’d felt in a long time. To someone in Miami who is used to the 80’s and 90’s, that same 60 degree would have felt chilly. A temperature does not feel warm or cold on its own. It only feels warm or cold based on how it compares to the temperatures we’re used to.

Most of life is the same. Relative.

Consider what would happen if you put a Navy SEAL with five combat deployments and a fourteen-year-old into the middle of a gunfight in Afghanistan. Would the stress levels be the same for the SEAL and the teenager?

Of course not. The SEAL would be perfectly calm while the teenager would panic and freak out.

You might be thinking, “well, yeah, obviously.” but this is important:

The situation you’re in does not determine how stressed you become.

How hard the situation feels to you determines how stressed you become.

The SEAL has spent every day for the past decade either in combat or preparing for combat. He has completed Hell Week, SEAL training, extremely arduous pre-deployment training, and hundreds of operations. Given all this experience doing extremely hard things, the rigors of combat don’t feel hard or overwhelming to the SEAL – they feel familiar and normal. As a result, he doesn’t become stressed or lose his cool.

The teenager hasn’t done any of these things. The challenges the teenager is used to are things like pop quizzes and trying to find a date to the dance. So, to the teenager, this firefight feels really hard, which means they will panic and undergo a massive stress response.

The SEAL and the teenager are in the exact same situation. But they have completely opposite reactions because they are used to different levels of challenge.

When the level of challenge in a moment exceeds the level of challenge, we’re comfortable with, we become stressed. When the level of challenge in a moment does not exceed the level, we’re comfortable with, we don’t get stressed.

We have very little control over the challenges life throws at us. We don’t get to pick whether:

1.     The boss gives you a really demanding deadline on a difficult new project.

2.     Your kids decide to act like rabid racoons, and you haven't had a moment of silence in a week.

3.     Bad traffic causes your 20-minute commute to turn into a 90-minute one.

However, that’s ok, because whether we become stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, or frustrated has nothing to do with the specifics of the challenge we’re presented with. It has everything to do with how that challenge compares to what we’re used to.

Today's tactic – choosing the wrench – is the practice of intentionally doing really hard things so all the little challenges life throws at you feel easy in comparison.

Each time you choose to do something really hard, it raises the bar for what your brain views as hard. The hard experience becomes a reference point against which your brain compares all your other experiences. If you do enough really hard things, all the things that used to stress you out – work deadlines, traffic james, busy schedules – will feel easy in comparison. And if an experience feels easy in comparison to the other things you’ve done, your brain won't produce a stress response that harms your calmness, happiness, and performance.

The response to difficult things becomes, “oh well, I’ll figure it out. I’ve done harder things than this before.”

Choosing the wrench creates a sort of force field around your mental health. If you intentionally seek out and complete really hard challenges, everything else in life won't be able to make you stressed because it won’t feel like a big deal in comparison to the mountains you’ve already climbed.

If you’ve never gone on a run, running a 5k seems like a huge challenge. But if you’ve run many ultramarathons, a 5k seems like a totally inconsequential little task. The 5k isn’t hard or easy on its own. It's only hard or easy based on what level of challenge you’ve accustomed yourself to.

Some challenges in life are enormous, like receiving a cancer diagnosis or losing a loved one. These are the mental equivalents of ultramarathons.

But 99% of the challenges we face on an everyday basis are like 5ks. If you’ve been sitting on the mental couch – always choosing the path of least resistance – they’ll feel daunting. But if you’ve put in the work of choosing the wrench and acclimating yourself to big challenges, these little 5ks won’t even make you flinch.

So, start doing hard things every day – whatever “hard” means to you:

-        Take cold showers

-        Volunteer to cover the double-shift

-        Be the one to get up in the middle of the night to care for your screaming kid

-        Workout outside in the heat or pouring rain instead of the comfortable climate-controlled gym

-        Go to a cocktail party or networking event if you hate meeting new people

-        Sign up for toastmasters if you hate public speaking

-        Sign up for a daunting race

-        Have that awkward conversation you’ve been avoiding

-        Ask your colleagues and friends to each name three things you could improve about yourself or your work

Do as many hard things as you can. Each hard experience raises the bar for what you view as hard, which means fewer and fewer of life’s challenges will meet the bar and be able to make you stressed.

Each time we choose comfort and ease over struggle and challenge, we receive comfort in that one small moment, but we deprive ourselves of comfort in every other moment going forward. By avoiding and fleeing from challenges, we coddle our minds and ensure the level of challenge our brain is used to and comfortable with is minisulce. As a result, the thousands and thousands of inescapable challenges that fill our days – traffic jams, delayed flights, annoying coworkers, lost jobs, financial difficulties, failures, setbacks, etc. - will make you feel stressed, anxious, frustrated, uncomfortable, and unhappy because they are all harder than what you are used to.

By instead choosing the wrench and regularly seeking out and embracing big challenges, you will make your brain used to doing really hard things. As a result, the challenges life throws at you will feel easy in comparison and won't be able to harm your calmness, effectiveness, and happiness.

Do hard things. Have an easy life.

Do easy things. Have a hard life.

There are no stressful situations. There are only stressed people. Choosing the wrench is how you ensure you are always harder than the situation you find yourself in.

Do today what others won't, so you can do tomorrow what others can’t.