What Does “Do Hard Sh*t” Actually Mean?
The phrase is everywhere.
It appears on shirts, social media posts, gym walls, and motivational videos.
Most people assume it means pushing harder, suffering more, or embracing discomfort for the sake of it.
But that misses the point entirely.
Doing hard sh*t is not about pain.
It is about growth.
It is about willingly stepping into situations that challenge who you are today so you can become someone stronger tomorrow.
Psychologists often refer to this as stress adaptation. The human mind and body grow when exposed to challenges that are difficult enough to create adaptation but not so overwhelming that they create collapse.
In simple terms:
You do not become resilient by avoiding difficulty.
You become resilient by experiencing difficulty and learning that you can survive it.
Over time, every challenge becomes evidence.
Evidence that you are capable.
Evidence that you can recover.
Evidence that you can keep moving forward.
That evidence becomes confidence.
And confidence becomes resilience.
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The Psychology of Hard Things
The brain is designed to protect us.
Its primary job is survival, not achievement.
Whenever we approach uncertainty, discomfort, risk, or failure, the brain often responds with caution.
Stay comfortable.
Stay safe.
Stay where things are predictable.
The problem is that growth rarely happens in predictable environments.
Research into resilience consistently shows that people develop psychological toughness not through comfort, but through exposure to manageable adversity.
The challenge itself is not what builds resilience.
The recovery and adaptation afterward is.
Every difficult experience teaches the brain something valuable:
“I’ve been here before.”
“I survived.”
“I can handle this.”
That internal belief becomes incredibly powerful.
Because when the next challenge arrives, you no longer face it as a beginner.
You face it as someone who has already proven they can endure.
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Sport Taught Me This
Sport became one of my greatest teachers.
Not because of the victories.
Because of the setbacks.
The sessions that didn’t go to plan.
The races that fell apart.
The injuries.
The missed opportunities.
The moments where I questioned whether I was good enough.
The reality is that endurance sport is a constant lesson in uncertainty.
You spend months preparing for an event that can go wrong in a matter of minutes.
You can do everything right and still fail.
You can prepare perfectly and still have a bad day.
Yet somehow, you show up again.
That process teaches something few other experiences can.
It teaches persistence.
Not because success is guaranteed.
But because the pursuit itself becomes worthwhile.
Every long run.
Every hard ride.
Every early morning.
Every race.
Every disappointment.
Every comeback.
They all become deposits into a resilience account.
An account that grows over time.
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Life Doesn’t Care About Your Plans
The same lessons apply outside sport.
Life has a way of presenting challenges whether we ask for them or not.
Relationships end.
Businesses struggle.
People disappoint us.
Plans fall apart.
Opportunities disappear.
Loss arrives unexpectedly.
No one escapes difficulty.
The difference is often how prepared we are when it arrives.
People who regularly expose themselves to challenge develop a different relationship with adversity.
Instead of seeing difficulty as a signal to quit, they see it as something to navigate.
Instead of asking:
“Why is this happening to me?”
They ask:
“How do I move through this?”
That shift changes everything.
Because adversity becomes less threatening when you’ve spent years proving to yourself that you can endure it.
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The Power of Rejection
Rejection has been one of the greatest teachers of my life.
More times than I can count.
Business ideas rejected.
Opportunities missed.
People saying no.
Plans failing.
Efforts not recognised.
At the time, rejection feels personal.
It feels like evidence that you’re not good enough.
Looking back, it was often the exact opposite.
Rejection was simply feedback.
Feedback that something needed refining.
Improving.
Adjusting.
Learning.
The people who eventually succeed are rarely the ones who avoid rejection.
They’re the ones who keep moving despite it.
Every rejection teaches a lesson.
Every lesson improves the next attempt.
Eventually, resilience becomes a by-product of repetition.
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What Is My Limit?
This question has followed me for years.
Not because I wanted to prove something to others.
Because I genuinely wanted to know.
What am I capable of?
How far can I go?
What happens if I keep showing up?
What happens if I don’t quit?
The pursuit of those answers has led me into countless uncomfortable situations.
Long races.
Hard training blocks.
Business risks.
Personal challenges.
Moments where failure felt very real.
The interesting thing is that every time I thought I had found my limit, I discovered there was more available.
More patience.
More strength.
More resilience.
More growth.
Most limits are not physical.
Most limits are perceived.
The mind often reaches its limit long before the body does.
The only way to discover what is truly possible is to continue exploring beyond what feels comfortable.
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Hard Things Create Perspective
One of the greatest benefits of doing hard things is perspective.
When you’ve voluntarily completed difficult training sessions, a stressful workday feels smaller.
When you’ve endured setbacks and rebuilt, future setbacks become less intimidating.
When you’ve experienced failure and survived it, failure loses its power over you.
Hard things recalibrate your understanding of what is difficult.
What once felt impossible becomes normal.
What once felt overwhelming becomes manageable.
This is adaptation in its purest form.
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The Hexis View
At Hexis, “Do Hard Sh*t” isn’t about glorifying suffering.
It’s about embracing growth.
It’s about understanding that performance is built through challenge, adaptation, recovery, and repetition.
It’s about choosing the difficult conversation.
The early alarm.
The extra session.
The disciplined decision.
The uncomfortable step forward.
Not because it’s hard.
Because growth lives on the other side of it.
The goal is not to make life harder.
The goal is to become stronger.
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Final Thoughts
Doing hard sh*t means willingly stepping into challenge so that challenge no longer controls you.
It means accepting that growth requires discomfort.
It means understanding that resilience is earned, not given.
It means recognising that every setback contains a lesson.
It means asking yourself, over and over again:
“What am I truly capable of?”
Because the answer is almost always more than you think.
And the only way to find out is to keep going.
To keep showing up.
To keep adapting.
To keep growing.
To keep doing hard sh*t.
