I Can Do Hard Things!

I’ve always had what I call hesitant confidence.

I’ve often been surprised when people tell me they never would have guessed I was nervous, anxious, or unsure about something. What they don’t see is the conversation happening in my head. While I’ve always believed I had the grit to make it through difficult situations, there were plenty of moments when I wasn’t entirely sure I could.

For years, I thought the phrase “You can do hard things” meant pushing through difficult times and bad things. Getting through challenges because I had to.

Lately, though, I’ve started thinking about it differently.

The hardest things aren’t always the things we have to do. Sometimes they’re the things we’ve convinced ourselves we can’t do.

For me, that thing was scuba diving.

I spent years saying I would never do it. I’m not a strong swimmer. I never truly learned to swim or dive with confidence, and honestly, I’ve always been a little embarrassed about that.

When I was six years old, my mom pulled me out of swimming lessons after an experience that upset me so much I came home crying. She was simply trying to protect me, and I completely understand why she made that choice. But somewhere along the way, I learned an unintended lesson. I learned that if something made me uncomfortable, I could step away from it.

There were definitely things I avoided because they felt intimidating. Even when part of me was curious or interested, I often talked myself out of trying them.

Oddly enough, I could push myself outside my comfort zone at work. New projects, learning new systems, taking on unfamiliar responsibilities, those felt manageable. But in my personal life, it was a different story.

Last week I returned from my second scuba diving trip, to Cozumel, Mexico. Just one week before leaving, I fractured my toe. My first thought was, I won’t be able to go diving.

The excuse was right there. Convenient. Justifiable. Easy.  But I realized something. I didn’t want an excuse. It worried me because I didn’t want to let fear win again or miss out on something I had come to love. So I went.

I completed five of the six dives before my toe finally convinced me to stop. And it was absolutely amazing!

I saw a nine-foot sleeping nurse shark, several more swimming nearby, a beautiful sea turtle, eels, starfish, barracuda, angelfish, parrotfish, colorful coral reefs, and more marine life than I could have imagined.

But my favorite moment wasn’t the sharks or the turtle.

It was a special fish. A large, spotted fish with a square-shaped head, tiny tail, and the biggest dark eyes I’ve ever seen. It swam right up to my face and looked at me as if it was just as curious about me as I was about it. It blinked. It appeared to smile. I smiled back so hard I nearly lost my regulator. Later I learned it was a specific type of puffer fish. I had only ever seen pictures of puffed-up puffer fish. I had no idea they could be so adorable.

But the real gift of that trip wasn’t the puffer fish. It was realizing that courage isn’t the absence of fear. I’m still scared every time I step off the boat and drop into the ocean. My heart still races. And yet, I love it every single time.

That’s when a question started forming in my mind:

What else have I decided I can’t do?

For years I’ve told myself it was too difficult to learn Spanish, that languages don’t come naturally to me, that I tried before and it just wasn’t for me. Meanwhile, my husband has spent more than a year practicing, and during our vacation I watched him confidently speak Spanish with people we met.

I was impressed. I was inspired. And maybe, just maybe, I was a little challenged.  I secretly downloaded a language-learning app and started again. This time with a different mindset. Not This is too hard. But I can do hard things.

Now all of you know my secret. Since my husband often works from home, I’m counting on everyone to help keep it quiet until I can surprise him on a future trip.

No pressure!!

What I’ve realized recently is that the things that scare us often become the things that expand us. On the other side of fear may be a new passion, a new skill, a new friendship, or a version of ourselves we haven’t met yet.

Maybe I’ll always have what I call hesitant confidence. I’ll probably still get nervous. I’ll probably still question myself before trying something new. But now I know something I didn’t fully understand before:

The hardest things aren’t always the things we have to do. Sometimes they’re the things we’ve convinced ourselves we can’t do.

For years, my motto has been: Life is short. Make the best of it.

That’s still a motto I believe in.

But now I’ve added a new one: