Some days it will not make sense, why life is so hard. You can do all of the right things and still not even get a sniff of success. Not only can it feel like there are obstacles in your way, but it can feel like they are trying to push you in the opposite direction.
Life was not meant to be easy. The challenges and hardships are what mold you into the person you need to be, to succeed. Smooth seas never create skilled sailors because ease proves nothing. Its the difficulty of life that shows you who you really are.
These Areas Are Why Life is So Hard
These four areas are what most people want to have all at once. If any of these fall out of balance, it can cause huge problems for your life. Its not just about money because it can't buy health, love, or happiness.
- Health
- Wealth
- Love
- Happiness
When you wake up each day, these are the four areas you put a lot of your focus, whether you notice it, or not. The problem is that everyone wants these things and sometimes there are limited resources. Only one person can get that job, land the big contract, or fall in love with that one girl.
You have to accept that it will always feel like these four areas are pushing back at you. They will not just willing come to you, and sit in your lap. If you want to be healthy, wealthy, have a great love life, and experience happiness daily, you have to pursue these things with everything you have in you.
7 Reasons Why Life is So Hard
1. Its Hard to Fatten Thy Purse
Most people spend 1/3 of their day sleeping and another third of the day working for money. Work is a huge part of life, even for people who are considered to be successful. Its not easy to acquire more money. Everyone could use a little bit more change in their pocket.
One of the biggest problems with being an employee is that it caps your earnings. A company has all the control over how much money you make. They can fire you, demote you, promote you, or give you any responsibilities that they choose to. You have no control over how you fatten your purse.
Entrepreneurship in some form is the only way to take control of how you fatten your purse. As Jeff Bezos has proven with Amazon, Entrepreneurship does not come with limit attached. There is no maximum amount of money that you can earn. You get to take back control.
2. Its Hard to Keep Thy Body in Shape
The world is trying to fatten you up and you have to constantly fight this. Marketers want you to be consumers, one that will part with your money easily. Society loves to binge watch Netflix, eat out, buy delicious snacks, and treats. Things that are not going to promote health, and fitness.
The truth is that getting in shape is hard because it requires self control in two different areas. You need to push yourself to workout, and then you need to take control of your eating.
When you begin to acquire any level of comfort financially, you purchase things that make life easier. The more you indulge in being comfortable, the harder it becomes to stay in shape. You fight this by making work a priority, and taking it easy on the eating.
3. Its Hard to Choose the Right People
Relationships are the key to a good life. The problem is that the wrong ones can also break you. If you marry the wrong person, it can bring you so much misery. When you have the wrong group of friends it can come with a heavy price.
Choosing the right people to be around can be one of the most important choices you make in your life. When you're around people that share common goals, and have the right mindset, it can make the difference between success, and failure.
4. Its Hard Because Life Isn't Fair
There is no way to get around this. Life is not always going to be fair. If you look at it from a Christian perspective, the only thing anyone is owed is death because we are all sinners. Its the grace of God that provides! If you look at what you deserve from this perspective you will see how blessed you are.
No matter how you see it though, you will realize that life is tough and it won't always feel just. Why do some have to struggle so much when it feels like some of the most corrupt people just get to keep skating by?
There is nothing you can do to prepare for the unfairness of life, other than to expect. You also have to understand that sometimes life will be unfair in your own favor. Sometimes you will get things that you have not paid the price for.
5. Its Hard Because Society can Suck
Society norms make life hard because we naturally want to do what we see everyone else doing. It take a lot of effort to swim against the stream. Everyone is moving towards the "in" thing. It puts pressure on you to live your life inside of the box.
You need to get married, buy a decent house, buy a car, and work a steady job with good benefits, or else you're not living your life right. Society sucks, and often does not get things right. People don't think for themselves.
The best way to fight this is to think! Use that big brain in your head to come to your own conclusions. don't just blindly follow the pack off of a cliff. Society will always make things harder for you, but you can ease that pain by being your own person.
6. It's Hard Because The Media and Government Do You No Favors
The media, and government always have their own agendas. They do not operate with your best interest at heart. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is thinking that they represent you, or want to get you the best information possible. Its just not true.
The media wants to make money, and that often means playing off of your fears. They want you to be worried because that will keep you watching the news, and feeling hopeless.
The media, and government can create mass panic, and confusion over nothing. Once again, you need to fact check, and look at different perspectives, and angles. Don't let these one sided stories feed your mind.
7. Its Hard Because Ignorance is Rampant
The first thing that happens when you begin to read, and learn finding out just how much you don't know. If you want to know why life is so hard, just look around at how many people are ignorant, and they don't even know it.
Reading reveals your ignorance, and that is a good thing. When you know your ignorant, you don't act like you know everything. There are too many people with opinions today that don't know how ignorant they are. They think they know but they really have no clue.
They pass on tips, and advice to others that is completely wrong. Others take their words as the Gospel truth, and pass it on. Bad information goes viral. The only way to fight this reality is to be careful who you listen to, and be hungry to learn as much as you can.
15 Things You Can Do to Win When Asking Why Life is So Hard
1. Improve Your Presentation
Life goes smoother when you look better. Its a sad truth but it makes a huge difference.
- dressing better
- smelling good
- being well groomed
- wearing nice clothes
All of these things can be the difference between being dismissed, and someone giving you a great opportunity.
2. Learn From the Mistakes of Others
Life is too short to spend all of your time on trial, and error. The first problem is that it takes time, the second issue is that it's risky. Trial and error can cost you your life.
The best thing you can do is read books, and take courses from other smart people. Learn from the mistakes that others have made instead of having to make them yourself.
3. Improve Your Inner Circle
Your inner circle consists of the close relationships that you have. You are the average of these people you spend your time around. If they are all broke, you will be also. If they are all fit, you will be also.
Improving your inner circle is a conscious choice to get rid of the people at the bottom of your circle who bring it down, and find new people playing life at a higher level.
4. Learn The Rules and Then Make Your Own
You have to learn the rules of the game before you can break them. If you don't know the rules, you risk getting yourself in trouble. When you make your own rules to life, you no longer have to worry about the media, and society. You set out to live life on your own terms.
5. Take 100% Ownership
No more blaming other people. You don't get to be the victim any more, it wont do anything for you. Take ownership for where you are in life. If things have not been good, own that, even if you have all right to blame others for your issues.
When you take ownership you get to be in power because you focus on what you can control. When you blame, you give the power to others to change, and be better and you lose all control.
6. Take Two Marshmallows Later
The Marshmallow Test was a study done decades ago and it was a simple test. It gave kids either one marshmallow now, or 2 a bit later. All the kids that could delay gratification lived better lives as adults.
The point here is that you need to delay gratification in your life. Build it into everything that you do. If you want to buy something, make it so that you have to wait a week or two first. Delaying gratification is one of the easiest ways to ensure future success.
7. Serve Others
Life can be difficult when you don't have any perspective. The things happening to you are the worst things ever. When you begin to serve others you gain a different perspective. You see that when you give, and serve there are people doing much worse than you.
The second thing that happens when you serve is you realize its the easiest way to win in life. People are selfish, and they think about themselves so you have to give them what they want, to get what you want.
8. Seek The Truth
Nothing will slow you down like having a loose grip on reality. You have to constantly hunt the truth down. It will help you to accept some of the things that make life so hard, while also fighting to remove some of the obstacles in your way.
9. Ditch The Poor Habits
One of the easiest way to make your life easier is to get rid of your destructive habits. Life is hard enough without being addicted to sugar, or alcohol. You have enough things in your way without the poor habits adding to it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to track your habits with a habit tracker.
10. Stop Taking Advice From The Wrong People
The quality of counsel that you receive has to improve. One of the best ways to know if someone is worth listening to is looking at their own life. If they are talking about money, do they manage their money well? If they are talking about fitness, do they manage their health and body well?
You don't have to be rude about it but just choose not to take everyone's advice as gospel. Find people who are experts, and having spent many years working at their craft. Go to people for very specific information.
11. Have a Killer Routine
Once you get rid of the negative habits and the negative voices in your life, its time to build your life on a new foundation. Your routine is going to be what you build your days on. A routine allows you to get the most important tasks of your day done without having to think too much about what to do.
You can use the Habit Stacker app to do this as well. You enter in your habits and the time you want to get them done, and the app will automatically put them in the correct order for you.
12. Go for No
You may need someone to give you a yes that could change your life. The only way you will get there is by preparing to hear no often. Don't fear rejection, instead learn from it, and keep using it to get better. The more times you hear no, the closer you're getting to hearing yes.
13. Compete With Yourself
In the social media world there are too many people trying to compare, and compete with other people. Its a dumb game to play because you never really know whats going on in someone else's life. Even people who you know well, may just be putting up a front.
Compete with yourself. If you compete with others what do you do when you're the best? If you compete with yourself you realize that you can always be better. You can always out perform yourself.
14. Prepare for The Worst
Don't just live in an optimistic world. Spend a lot of time preparing for the worst case situations in life. If you prepare for the worst of the worst, then anything less then that will seem like its much easier to deal with. Bad situations hurt much worse when you have spent no time preparing for them.
15. Be Optimistic
Once you have prepared for the worst, then you can begin to expect the best. When you prepare, and you do the work, you should expect good things to happen. You can't be negative all of the time. You need to remove people from your life who are negative for no reason. You have to be able to see how good things can be.
Do The Hard Thing
If you purposely do what is hard, then life will be easy. If you always do what is easy, then life will be hard.
- Take the stairs
- Do the workout
- Finish that last rep
- Save that 10%
- Help others
- Love people when its hard to
- Wake up on time
- Eat the salad
- Don't go back for seconds
When you consistently make hard choices, it makes you stronger. Your will power builds up, and its easier for success to come your way because you will be ready for any challenge. You will be fit both mentally, and physically. That will help you to win the day.
Most people decide to choose what's easy. When you choose whats easy it makes you weak, and unable to handle the real difficulty life will throw at you. When your path is easy, you don't have the strength to handle the challenges that life throws at you.