“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody want to lift no heavy ass weight” -Ronnie Coleman
Everybody wants a lot of things. Everybody wants to be healthy. Everybody wants financial abundance. Everybody wants to go on amazing vacations. Everybody wants to be fit and look great. Everybody wants to be respected. Everybody wants a hot piece of ass and great friends 
.
The challenge is acquiring all those things takes massive amounts of sacrifices for most of us (some were born into the right circumstances I know). For almost everyone, obtaining those things requires a personal journey where you leave behind an old version of ‘you.’ Where you completely abandon old ways of thinking, evaluating, and acting and replace them with updated, enhanced versions. This can be stressful and it requires energy. In fact, it is very stressful. Adaptation and personal evolution is generally hard and uncomfortable; the complete opposite of the homeostasis and consistency your lizard brain wants and demands.
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” -Mike Tyson
What Mike Tyson was really saying here is simple: having a plan/goals means nothing if you’re not prepared and willing to go through the adversity required to actually implement that plan. In other words, wanting to get in-shape doesn’t mean anything until you are perfectly aware of what is required on a daily basis to make it happen and willing to do it. Having a goal to get rich means absolutely nothing until you know exactly all the personal changes, sacrifices, and massive amounts of hard work required to make it happen. And once you have that understanding, it’s still going to be a battle to implement.
Overcoming adversity
At the core, my foundational beliefs is that life is about personal evolution. In other words, life is about progressing and becoming more. Personal evolution is a journey and it requires overcoming adversity. So if you follow the logic train, life is really about overcoming adversity since evolving presupposes going through adversity. The speed at which you progress depends on your adversity ‘muscle.’ Yes, overcoming adversity is just like a muscle; it can be trained and become stronger or it can go into atrophy and become useless. I’ve had times in my life where it’s strong, and other times where it’s weak. I’m sure you can relate to this as well.
Action steps
Just understanding that adversity is the entire point can help people massively. When you’re lifting weights and it’s burning like hell, you know you’re probably doing it right. When you’re starting a new job, and it’s painful you know you’re doing it right. When you’re trying to correct an old habit of thinking or feeling, and it’s not easy or going as originally planned, you know you’re on track. In these examples, the pain is really just you going through adversity. Know that going through this adversity is the point and required for personal progress/evolution (aka the point of life).
In addition to simply understanding, start consciously training your adversity muscles. A little pain is generally your friend. Maybe not in the moment, but definitely in the end. This doesn’t mean you become a masochist where you think pain is the point, it means you posses an understanding of the requirements of the game of personal evolution.
