Doing hard things is important. That’s how you earn and learn valuable things.
But don’t do it because suffering feels virtuous. Don’t grind on pure momentum because stopping feels like quitting. Don’t maintain something hard out of fear of what change would require.
That’s stupid.
Life’s going to hand you plenty of hard you didn’t choose. When you do get a choice — and you will — spend the time figuring out what you actually want first. Then align yourself with the difficult thing that gets you there.
⚡️ F5 Fast Files - Short Summary
Doing hard things is important. Doing the right hard thing is a choice.
There’s an equation for this, you only get to pick two of the variables.
Three questions that tell you whether you’re grinding on the right hard thing, or just grinding.
🧮 Y = tx
Nerd brain coming out here, you ready? Here’s a way to think about this more precisely.
Call the valuable thing you want Y. Call the difficult thing to get there x. Call the time you’re willing to spend t. Roughly: Y = tx.
The catch is you only really get to choose two of the three. Pick a valuable thing (Y) and what thing you’re willing to do (x), then time (t) gets determined for you. Pick a valuable (Y) and when you need it by (t), and your options for x narrow to just a few difficult, but possible ways to get there!
Want a new car, and you want it today? Your options are whatever’s sitting on the lot right now, at whatever price they’re asking. No room to negotiate x, because you’ve locked t at zero. Change the time (t) because you’re willing to wait. Compensate with a lower value (Y), a used car, and the difficulty shrinks with it.
Most people don’t take the time to define the variables, but choosing them on purpose is a life hack! 👇
🔍 Three Questions
I’m standing at a real junction at work right now. I can literally choose whichever I want and just tell the boss. Two paths, genuinely different set of difficulties and downstream effects.
What do I actually want? Not what’s safest or what avoids the most conflict — what do I actually want on the other side of this. My valuable (Y). Only then was I able to see which hard thing (x) would lead me there in time.
So here’s my self-check spelled out! For when you’re in something hard and you’re trying to figure out if it’s the right hard.
First — name your Y specifically. Define success as something you’d recognize when it shows up. A title. A specific number on a scale or a bar. Etc. (If you want to go deeper on this step specifically, I wrote a whole issue on it a while back — The DEFINITION of Greatness.)
Second — get honest about your current (x) and (t). What effort are you making right now to get your valuable Y? If you proceed with this current difficult (x), how long will it take you to get to what you want (Y)?
Third — align with what you want. Hard doesn’t mean aligned. Working brutal hours is hard but may not align with the financial goals or the promotion you want. Maybe it does lead to the dream, just not in the time you want. To shorten the timeline you need to do something different.
If priorities have changed, return to question 1.
What do you want? Get aligned.
Doing hard things is important, but the difficulty alone doesn’t always lead to outcomes you value. The life hack is whether you chose it on purpose.
Important to add here that Faith teaches us that all things work together for our good and experience. Correct. Life will hand you enough difficulty you didn’t ask for and situations you can’t change. Every one of those is eternally valuable!
But don’t waste your limited choices grinding blindly just because stopping feels like failure, or clinging to a familiar difficulty because change is scarier.
Pick your wh(Y). Trace the line. Then go get hard about the right thing.
Justin
F5 Brotherhood
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