Do the Hard Thing

Kathleen

They say the three most destabilizing life events are death, divorce, and moving. So far, 2025 has handed me all three. Last week, a young, brilliant soul in my family took their own life. My two best friends—the people I speak to more than anyone else, who’ve been my clearest model of love and commitment for as long as I can remember—are navigating marital separation. And come August, I’ll be moving out of my beloved studio apartment in Greenwich Village.

I’ve weathered change before, but this season feels monumental. Biblical, even. Like I’ve hit the bookend between the Old Testament and the New. Like stepping out of an airport terminal in a foreign country after losing all my luggage—greeted by a sign that reads NO RE-ENTRY, with no clue what’s waiting for me on the other side. I’m hoping for a clean bathroom, a cab, or at the very least, a vending machine with a lukewarm beverage.

2025 is also the year I will turn thirty. And although I’m thrilled about entering my thirties, I had a feeling that the turning of a new decade would inevitably get a bit murky. The end of the beginning vibes, you know. Ominous. Little did I know just how dramatic things would get... and I’m still four months out.

The message in the air around this brutal one-third-life crisis seems to beone of discomfort—because nothing about today feels safe. The foundational ground I’ve known for twenty-nine years—family, home, even, tragically, a very special loved one—is vanishing. Fast. The tectonic plates beneath me are shifting. And truthfully, I’m stumbling to keep my balance. I’m crying on the subway to work. I’m crying on the phone. I’m crying myself to sleep.

There are bright moments, yes—but most days, I can’t catch my breath. It’s been blow after blow lately, and I’m a bit paranoid, just waiting for the next piece of bad news to drop. I can see how this kind of streak can turn a person into a real Negative Nelly. Because when you’re hurting, it’s hard not to see all the bad, all the time. I’m also scared of the waves of grief. How fast and intense they hit. Like, how big will the next one be? And will I be able to

handle it when it comes?

I’m only sharing this personal hellscape in detail because I know there are other people feeling off too. There always are. That’s the human condition, right? We are never the only

ones feeling what we’re feeling.

I’ve been putting off writing this piece for month. Candidly, I just did not feel like it—because writing is painful. It’s scratching at my psyche until something honest appears. Sitting in

silence. Tuning into my internal noise and extracting whatever needs air. It’s deeply uncomfortable. So, I avoided it. For months.

Today is Sunday. Also, the very last day to submit a piece to this issue of From the Heart. I like contributing to this newsletter because it allows me to speak directly to a deeply curious

audience, one that has embraced me over the years—and, truthfully, helped me believe I can call myself a writer. Just so you all know: Your support has changed my life. Your emails,

stories, and kind comments bring me a profound sense of purpose and some of the greatest professional joy I’ve ever known. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, one million times.

Back to the writing—if there’s one truth I’ve gathered from scribbling in journals since age six and tapping away at Word docs into my twenties, it’s this: I always feel better after I’ve

written it down. The act of pulling words from my head and giving them a home on the page somehow dims the fluorescent light of anxiety. It mutes the blaring dread loop. Writing scratches an itch that keeps me sane, maybe even alive. At the very least, it saves me from insomnia.

So forcing myself to write this piece—about what, I’m still not entirely sure—got me thinking about hard things. What it takes to do them. Why they’re so difficult. And how we get to the

other side.

I once heard Andrew Huberman say that a person’s success is directly tied to how good they are at doing the things they don’t want to do. In other words: willpower. Saying no to what you want right now is saying yes to peace later... supposedly. So I guess the million-dollar question is: How capable are we of denying ourselves short-term comfort in exchange for long-term ease?

Ugh. I’ll be honest: In the wake of suicide, a messy marital split, and a forced move, willpower has felt like a luxury I cannot afford. Hence, this article is arriving at the eleventh hour.

But it helps to know there’s a part of the brain dedicated to this. A whole slice of us wired to do what we think we absolutely cannot. It’s called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, and it’s

responsible for facing challenges and building resilience, especially as we age. And like any muscle, the more we use it, the stronger it gets. It literally grows in size the more we deny

ourselves the easy route.

Want to simplify your life? I hate to say it, but start doing the hard thing. As Chris Williamson says, the magic we’re looking for is on the other side of the work we’re avoiding. So have the tough conversation. Pick up the book. Sign up for the class. Go to the workout. Ask for help. Transfer the check into savings. Or in my case, write the damn article.

If you hop on the discipline train and do the hard things, but then get sick of it and stop, life doesn’t get easier. Instead, the easy things also become hard. But on the other hand, the

more you do hard things, the easier everything becomes. In doing the hard stuff, resistance doesn’t disappear entirely, but it softens. Considerably. There’s a snowball effect with discipline, thank God.

But how do you start doing the hard thing? Especially, when it feels unbearable? There’s no secret sauce. Just this: Let resistance be your compass. If something feels uncomfortable or inconvenient, it’s probably the exact thing you should do.

Say it’s Sunday afternoon. You’re three episodes into a new show. There are five more to go. It’s 2 p.m. and you haven’t left the house. The hard thing is getting off the couch. Going for a walk. Hitting the grocery store. Answering a few emails so Monday doesn’t feel like punishment. None of these tasks sound fun—but on the other side of them? Anxiety will be

quieter. Your body will feel better. Your future self will be grateful, trust me.

So next time something feels terrible—like a chore, a deadline, or a conversation—consider that dread your North Star. The harder it feels, the greater the payoff waiting on the

other side.

I didn’t make these rules. And yes, it seems cruel that taking care of ourselves has to be so inconvenient. But here we are. And now that this piece is written, I feel better. Putting

words on the page—something I hadn’t done in months—reminded me that even when everything is crumbling, I can still find a bit of myself on the other side of a five-hour Word

document dump.

Because she’s still there. The good me. The calm, bright, lustful-for-life version of me. The me that’s not scared, or paranoid, or dreading tomorrow. I can still access her—I just have to scrub a little harder. Slow down, squint, and turn the windshield wipers up one more notch. Show some focus. That luminous version of me doesn’t arrive through self-pity. She arrives—

annoyingly—when I fight for her.

So do the hard thing. And do it often. It’s good for your brain, apparently. And maybe it’s also a key to long-term happiness—that elusive, slippery, shimmering thing we’re all chasing.

But maybe most importantly, doing the hard thing might be the fragile, golden thread that leads you back to you. The person buried beneath the sludge of sadness and nostalgia. The girl on the other side of the lull. Even if you can’t always see her—she’s still there.

If you’re in a rough patch, know that it’s just that: a patch. Not your permanent front lawn. Just a moment that, someday, will be a shrinking speck in the rearview mirror.

Doing the hard thing will always feel ten times harder in darker seasons. That much is true. But I’m a firm believer that effort never goes to waste. It’s like carrying a stone in your pocket. At first, it’s heavy. Then it’s just irritating. And eventually, you forget it’s there—because you’ve adapted. You’ve grown strong enough to carry the weight without thinking twice about it. One day, the stone simply becomes a part of you.

That’s what it means to do the hard thing. And so far, that’s also what it feels like to hold grief: an added weight that never fully disappears. The hope is, one day, I’ll be able to carry it

with more grace and ease than I am today. Maybe that’s what health is all about, too—mental and physical. Uncomfortable at first, but eventually, it leaves us with something good.

Something earned. Something—maybe more than anything else in this life—that we can really hold on to.

Kathleen with her beloved, late, first cousin Patrick in Ireland, August 2024