77 | CHOOSE YOUR CHALLENGE

CHOOSE YOUR HARD Sometimes the rain isn’t the problem. It’s how much we fight the fact that it’s raining. It was a rainy Friday morning. Cold. Wet. One of those mornings where everything just feels a little harder than it needs to be. And honestly, the weather wasn’t even the biggest problem. The morning had already been chaos. Missing glasses. Missing shoes. Kids to get where they needed to go. Work waiting. A brain already running in ten different directions. I felt behind before the day had really started. And sitting in my truck, I started thinking: Maybe the goal isn’t to avoid the hard. Maybe it’s to choose how we meet it. CHOOSE YOUR HARD We love making plans. I make them as a dad. I make them as a coach. I make them at work. I make them in business. Planning is good. The problem comes when we start believing the plan guarantees the outcome. Because then it rains. Someone loses their shoes. The schedule changes. Something doesn’t work. You get overwhelmed. And suddenly, instead of dealing with what’s actually happening, you’re frustrated because it isn’t what you thought should be happening. That’s where I’m trying to make a shift: Choose your hard instead of resenting the hard you’re already in. If it’s raining, meet the rain. If it’s cold, meet the cold. If life is busy, figure out how you need to manage the busyness. You might not get to choose the conditions. But you still get to choose your response. SOMETIMES YOU LET YOURSELF DOWN Even a Cleveland Browns win got me thinking about expectations. We spend a lot of time worrying about other people disappointing us. But sometimes the harder truth is this: We disappoint ourselves. We know how we want to show up—as husbands, dads, coaches, and leaders. And sometimes we don’t. That doesn’t mean we stay there. It means we recognize it, learn from it, and decide how we’re going to respond next. MY RAIN RIGHT NOW Right now, my rain is busyness. There are a lot of good things happening. Family. Work. Coaching. Building. Creating. But good things can still become too much when there’s no margin between them. And I’m learning that feeling overwhelmed doesn’t necessarily mean everything is going wrong. Sometimes it means I need to manage myself better. Slow down. Make room. Reset. Decide what actually matters today. Because maybe we appreciate the sunshine a little more after the rain. Maybe warmth feels different after the cold. And maybe some of the seasons we’re trying so hard to escape are actually building something in us. YOUR CHALLENGE What’s your rain right now? Don’t spend all your energy wishing the conditions were different. Ask yourself: What can I control? How do I want to respond? What could this be building in me? Then choose your hard. And meet the day you actually have. TRUCK TALK That’s the idea behind these short conversations. A few minutes on the drive. A chance to think. A chance to reset. And hopefully, by the time you pull into wherever you’re going, you’re a little more prepared to show up the way you want to. Better men. Better coaches. Better dads. — Coach Sean Patrick Just Call Dad | Strive Light Co.