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How to Get Through the Hard Stuff
Why most advice about grit and resilience sucks and what to do instead
Grit is important. I get it — you get it — we all get it! But why does most advice about how to build grit suck?
Grit, sometimes known as resilience in more clinical places, is the ability to keep your life moving forward after setbacks. While it is a universal truth that no human life is without pain or problems, it often feels like so many people who choose to write about grit have never faced a setback in life that they didn’t have enough money to handle.
Better planning doesn’t solve poverty. Happy mantras don’t dispel years of abuse. Smiling won’t bring back loved ones who have passed on.
And while all pain is relative, the truth is that coming from a certain level of wealth protects you against the worst elements of the tragedies and traumas that most of us have to live through.
So much advice about resilience comes down to the simple lines from the wonderful children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt:
We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no!
We’ve got to go through it!
Telling this to an adult as a way of saying you should have grit is a bit like telling someone who is drowning that their life would be better if they would just keep their head above the water.
You already know you have to go through this dark period. You need the strength to get back up and a reason to keep trying.
I don’t know what you’re going through. But I do know what I have gone through. At the risk of sounding like a contestant in the Trauma Olympics, here are a few of the challenges I’ve faced:
Physical abuse at the hands of a parent
Emotional abuse at the hands of a parent
Religious trauma
Cancer
Mental health struggles
Adult ADHD
Loss of a career
Financial collapse and bankruptcy
Dealing with the welfare system
Suicidal ideation
Addiction in close family members
Untimely deaths of parents and other family members
Chronic illnesses in my children and spouse
I share these challenges not to boast or to generate pity. I want you to know that I have been through some shit. Many of these challenges have…
