I don’t want to do it. It’s going to be very hard… it’s going to suck.

I have to do it. I’m going to do everything in my power to be successful… it’s going to suck.

That’s the internal conflict of doing hard things.

The suck in ‘it’s going to suck’ is the part that makes it worth doing.

If it were easier, more enjoyable in the moment, it wouldn’t actually be hard. It also wouldn’t come with as great a sense of accomplishment. It wouldn’t be something as memorable. The internal conflict is real, it might even be necessary. Because if there wasn’t an element of ‘suck’, it wouldn’t be as rewarding. The trick is to embrace the suck, and to understand that it’s one of the hard parts of doing hard things.

That said, do hard things. Not because anyone is watching, not for anyone else but yourself. Recognize that the internal conflict is just part of doing hard things, not a reason to avoid it. And so that challenge you’ve been thinking of doing, or that goal you’ve talked about but haven’t acted on even though you really want to do it… The one that’s going to be hard, that you know will in some way suck getting to the end…

Start it. Do it. And know that the act of doing it is the reward, even though it’s also going to suck.