Friday Focus: Doing hard things
Nettie La Belle-Hamer, vice chancellor for research
March 12, 2023
— By Nettie La Belle-Hamer, vice chancellor for research
If you are reading this you are probably within academia in some way – student, staff, or faculty. If you are in academia, you are probably doing hard things every day. I am not going to tell you about how, if you face challenges and do hard things, your life will get easier and you can convert to eating bonbons every day. In fact, I want to encourage you to do more hard things without even having the goal of ‘easy.’ The goal of doing hard things, rising to the challenge, and resiliency through hard work is to be better at doing just that. That is what I want to talk about today.
Why do we need to voluntarily take on hard tasks, challenge ourselves, and risk failure? Because life is hard. Things will come your way involuntarily that you will need to conquer. While you cannot prepare for calamity, you can prepare to survive, even thrive, in the face of it. Greg Heil said it best in Stop Asking for Easy: A Manifesto for Doing Hard Things Voluntarily, “if you voluntarily train yourself to handle adversity and develop toughness–both mental and physical–you are thereby equipping yourself to deal with the adversity that you’re not expecting.” He uses mountain bike race training to illustrate the benefits of voluntary challenges, but it can easily be applied to doing other hard things such as getting a college degree or fighting cancer.
What does getting a college degree have to do with surviving cancer? Everything. Both are hard things. I have done both and so can you. The first was a voluntary path of rocks, hard places, and steep hills. The second was involuntary, but the same kind of path. Both had risk of failure, with no guarantee for success. Both felt hard, but one I could have walked away from while the other I had no choice.
I am grateful for the resilience, mental toughness, and strength I gained by getting my physics degrees at a time when I was often the only woman in the room. I am grateful for the times I chose to just keep going at midnight when quantum mechanics was kicking my butt. I am beholden to the professors, TAs, and classmates who were with me in the trenches as I fought through what felt like insurmountable challenges. College is not just about what you learn from books. It is about learning about yourself. It is about building your confidence to take on challenges. It is about knowing that you can do hard things.
I had this experience in my back pocket when I was diagnosed with cancer. It wasn’t until recently that I connected the two things. So, now, I can say I am also grateful for the resilience and strength I possess to fight cancer that came from, at least in part, doing the hard work of advanced degrees in the face of all the hard things that come with that.
Every time you figure out how to do something that is hard, feels impossible, or looks like a huge mountain with no path up, you learn. Every time you choose to challenge yourself, you get stronger, more resilient. I believe as Khaled Allen does, "it is a myth that you're either born tough or you're not. The truth is, toughness, both mental and physical, can and should be trained and cultivated, just like any other skill.”
That is why I am so glad I am here. I am learning and growing, which is better than eating bonbons. That is why I am also glad you are here. The world needs future leaders to be strong and resilient, ready for the challenges that come. Let’s make the most of our time together at UAF and do some hard things.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week.