The Hardest Lesson I Ever Learned

For most of my life, I took the path of least resistance.

If it was uncomfortable, I’d avoid it.
If it was hard, I’d delay it.
If it triggered fear or self-doubt, I’d find a way around it.

It made life feel manageable for a while.
But there was a cost.

What I was really doing—without realizing it—was eroding my frustration tolerance.
I never trained myself to sit in discomfort.
To hold intensity.
To stay present in the unknown.

Then came the crash.

I went through years of severe anxiety—
the kind that hijacks your body,
that turns simple things into impossible ones,
that convinces you you’re not safe anywhere, not even in your own mind.

And in that storm, I couldn’t rely on willpower or cleverness.
I had to learn how to stay.

Stay in the moment.
Stay with the discomfort.
Stay in the game—even when my nervous system screamed for an exit.

Sometimes I took it day by day.
Sometimes hour by hour.
Sometimes I counted breaths just to survive the next minute.

But what I discovered in those moments changed everything:

This lesson echoed something I later read from David Goggins,
a man who built himself from brokenness through brutal discipline.
He calls it: callusing the mind.

Where most people turn away from pain, fear, or uncertainty,
Goggins leans in.
Not because he enjoys suffering,
but because he knows that staying in the fire builds something unshakable.

He taught himself to love uncertainty.
To seek out resistance.
Because every moment spent in discomfort was a brick in the foundation of a stronger self.

That principle saved me.
And it continues to shape me today.

When I want to give up, I stay one minute longer.
When fear whispers, I don’t run—I listen, then breathe.
When I’m tempted to quit, I remember:

If you’re in a hard season right now—
don’t escape it.
Stay.
Even if it’s just for a few seconds more.
That’s where your transformation begins.

This is how grit becomes grace.
This is how you build something unbreakable.

With heart,
Jan

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