5 Reasons why we do Hard Things

This weekend I participated in my first 3-day CrossFit competition, and it reminded me, yet again, of why I choose to do hard things.
Hard things take us out our comfort zone. They teach us that we are capable of things we never knew we could do.
Its never easy, I spent the whole first day of the competition listening to my brain come up with every reason as to why it was a terrible idea and why I was going to LITERALLY DIE if I decided to continue and compete. My brain loves to be dramatic.
It taught me something profound though, that sometimes listening to my brain is not such a good idea. If I had listened, if I had pulled out because of any one of the 100 pieces of evidence that my brain was giving me, I would have missed out on something that was not only truly life changing but also so much fun.

So, here are my 5 reasons why I want to do more hard things:

1. They teach us that we are capable of more than we knew
2. Sometimes we fail at them, and being good at failure is the key to success
3. We get to go through our fear and come out the other side, it teaches us that we are more than our fears
4. We learn to observe our thoughts & do it anyway
5. It is fun

Take 5 minutes today and ask yourself, what is one hard thing that you want to do but have been too afraid to try? Listen to your brain as it tells you all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it then go out and do it anyway.