My heating system died the other day. In the middle of winter, of course. It could be worse – I could live up North, but still, we have a winter storm coming this weekend and cold is cold. I had been saving up to replace my HVAC systems anyway, so today I’m working from my kitchen table while a crew installs a new HVAC system above my home office.
Watching them remove the old outdoor unit from the concrete slabs outside, I began to wonder how they’d attach the new units to the concrete. I’m fairly handy around the house, but I’ve never done anything like that before. I caught myself thinking “That’s going to be hard to do”, and then realized that the only reason I thought it would be hard is because I’d never done it before. The installation crew not only knows what to do, but they’ve done it many times and have all the right tools for the job. For them, it’s not only NOT hard, but routine and probably even simple.
This is a good lesson to be reminded of from time to time: Difficulty is only a matter of perspective. What is hard to the novice can be easy for the expert.
Difficulty is also transitional. It’s not entirely fair to say that it’s easy for HVAC installers to install a new unit, because it’s an objectively difficult thing to master. Nobody is born knowing the difference between a heat pump and a furnace, it’s something you learn. If you go back far enough, everyone on my installation crew once said “That’s going to be hard to do” when faced with attaching a device to a concrete slab.
After years of learning, practicing, and doing, what was once hard can become routine.
We hear from a lot of people that they want to work on their personal growth, but that it’s hard for them. It’s hard to find the time. It’s hard to know what to journal about. It’s hard to get through a self-study book. It’s hard to concentrate.
That’s all very true. But as my HVAC installers reminded me today, it doesn’t always have to be that way.
We built Maple to make personal growth more accessible. We designed it to make it easy to journal, to reflect, to keep track of your thoughts and ideas. We wanted to take away some of the hurdles that accompany personal improvement, so people could get right to the work of making their lives better and more fulfilling.
The truth is that even with the right tools, you must to do the hard work. You must find the time. You must confront the blank page and start typing words. You must get through that book because you know it’s good for you.
Doing that means getting past your fears. Fear that you can’t do it, that it won’t help, that you aren’t good enough.
You can, it will, and you are.
Maybe getting past those fears is as simple as reminding yourself that it’s only hard for now. If you keep at it, little by little, eventually it becomes easier. And eventually you will master it, and your personal growth habits will become routine.
We’d love to hear how you’ve overcome your personal growth challenges in the past, especially if you’re using Maple to make your journey just a little bit easier. Use our contact form to get in touch with us and share your story, or become a guest blogger to share your story with our readers.
(For those who are interested, the HVAC installers replaced my concrete slabs with steel ones. See? Easy!)
#LetsGrow #MeetMaple
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Christine
Maple
Scott