why is this so hard?

I’m sitting here on my deck, got in at 12:30 from a long shoot yesterday.   We started at 7 am and finished at 11:15 pm.   Pretty long day, but you know what, it was exhilarating.

I am glad to have today off, but at the same time, I want to be back on set again.  Luckily, I will be back on set on Tuesday.

This week, I had 2 commercials.    One was a 5 day commercial and we shot the first 3 days last week.   It was with these 2 directors who are so nice.   One is from Australia, big hulking guy with a great smile.  And the other, a small, pudgy guy that is very artistic.  You can tell he can’t turn his mind off.   He’s born to direct.   And his wife is the make up artist.    They are a cute couple on set.

So, the first 3 days on this job were so easy.   Then came yesterday.

That was rough!   Technically, it was very challenging.   I had like 4 big, huge technical disasters happen right off the bat.    We are getting ready to shoot and I am in no position to be ready.   The heart is pumping, the mind is trying to stay clear, and I’m trying to figure things out fast.   It becomes FIRST, SECOND, THIRD in the mind.

I got the most important things figured out first, then found out I had time, (because the big scene was happening after lunch) to figure out the next big problem I had.

So, I did figure it out and the shoot went smoothly.

But, yeah, I was shitting bricks.

Here’s the thing.   You NEVER want these tough situations to happen.   You never want things to break, go wrong, or to work with people who are tough and make communication challenging.   Yes, I loved the first 3 days which were easy.

But the 4th day, yesterday, it rocked.   That is when you learn.

It’s not the easy days that do anything for you.

It’s the hard ones.   Precisely when things get hard, really tough, when you are shitting bricks, is when it’s really good.

Now, I have a new sense of confidence because I went through it and survived.   I know more now.   I survived.   Now, I’m a few steps ahead of where I was a week ago.

How does this apply to you?

When the tough times come, when stuff happens that you don’t want to happen, know that that’s when you grow.

The wolf of wall street guy, Jordan Belfort, says “The worst your life is, if you survived the worst of the worst, if you’ve made the biggest mistakes and you’re still breathing, you can learn from that and that builds muscle.”

You learn more from your failures than success.   You get stronger from failure.   You get stronger from building those muscles.

The tough times are a blessing.  If it’s been tough for you, what have you gotten from that?  If you can shift how you think about it, and realize the resiliency, the strength, the determination, the desire that you’ve gotten from these tough times, you’ll know that the tough times are what is VALUABLE.

That’s what makes you what you turn into being.

You can choose an easier road, and learn little, and have mediocre success.

Or say YES, go for the hard things, knowing they will knock you around, and you will come out a stronger person.

Dudes, in the last 2 months, I f-ed up several times.  I have been put in some tough situations.   In those situations, it wasn’t always pretty.

In fact, I recognized that I did show stress.   My STATE, which is how you are looking at things as they are happening, went into stress state and it showed.

I learned from those situations.   I learned by observing my state at the end of the day and I knew I could do better.

That’s how you get stronger!

Next time, I will handle it with ease.   I survived before and I can manage my state better next time and do even better.

Janet

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