The Underrated Challenge of Embracing Ease

In May 2023, I deadlifted a 200 pound barbell for one rep. It was 23 pounds heavier than my heaviest lift to that point, and seemed to come out of nowhere.

It was a huge thrill.

After hitting those milestones, I set a goal of hitting 200 for 5 reps.

I kept coming up short.

Sometimes I couldn’t lift the weight at all; other times I’d get stuck at 2 or 3 reps, then eke another few reps after a short break. But I couldn’t seem to get 5 clean reps in one shot.

The Moment of Triumph

Finally, in August 2024, I accomplished my goal of deadlifting 200 for 5 reps. I was ecstatic, and the post-achievement high lasted for several days.

A few weeks later, I hit 205 for 5 reps, and again was jubilant. It felt like a triumph.

Read: The Biggest Lesson of the Deadlift (It’s not about the deadlift).

A Contrast

Fast forward to March 2025. I had to have my right knee immobilized for a month, which resulted in losing all range of motion in my right knee.

Once I was allowed to remove the knee brace, I began a slow process of rehabilitation.

In May, even before my knee had regained full range of motion, I resumed deadlifting from the floor. And by the end of that month, I deadlifted 225 for 5 reps.

This was a 20-pound jump over my previous 5-rep max lift of 205. It was also heavier than my previous one-rep-max lift of 220.

It was a huge achievement in its own right, and even more extraordinary considering that my knee hadn’t yet regained its full range of motion.

And yet, in contrast to the exuberance I felt last year when I hit 200 and 205 for 5 reps, my reaction was muted. There was no big exhilaration, no jubilant triumph.

I didn’t even feel the wonder of surprise. I knew I had the capacity to do it, even if I wasn’t confident of my capacity on that day.

The Missing Element

So why didn’t I erupt in screams of victory?

I don’t want to say it was easy, because it was certainly hard. It was 225 pounds.

What was missing was the months-long struggle.

Unlike my build to 200 for five, which came slowly and incrementally, this achievement came without a big build-up.

I hadn’t systematically progressed through the milestones of hitting five reps at 210, 215, and 220. I hadn’t spent several months trying and failing to get 225 for five.

In fact, before that day, I had never lifted 225 even for one rep.

The Story: Success Must Be Earned

From the deep recesses of my subconscious mind, a little critic voice whispered:

You didn’t earn this. You didn’t pay your dues. It came too easily, so it doesn’t count.

To be fair, it’s not like I walked in off the street and crushed my deadlift PR. I put in the work. I train deadlifts weekly. And when my knee was immobilized, I did rack pulls and other rehab.

No rational person, viewing this situation objectively, would say I didn’t earn my accomplishment. In fact, it took a friend who looked at my video to make me realize I had overlooked a major achievement.

The “We Can Do Hard Things” Mindset is a Trap

The critical voice telling me that I didn’t earn my victory came from a deeply entrenched belief that victory must be earned through months or years of struggle.

Can you even call it a victory if there was no struggle?

At the risk of stating the obvious, that belief is not confined to the realm of deadlifts.

You might have a similar story rattling around the dark corners of your subconscious.

The common meme that tells us to “embrace the struggle” implies that this is the necessary path for accomplishment. The story we hear is that life is challenging and that we must work hard and fight for victories — but that we can do hard things.

This conditions us to believe that we must earn our rewards and accomplishments through hard work and discipline, practice and patience. We have to “pay our dues.”

The problem with this belief is that it can cause us to make things harder than they need to be just to feel like we earned our victories. This creates a recipe for burnout.

Overcomplicating. Over-explaining. Perfectionism. Getting tangled in a web of your own thoughts and ideas. I’ve been guilty of all of these.

Read: Why You Can’t Resist the Pull of the Hustle

The Underrated Challenge of Embracing Ease

Ease, on the other hand, is a different story.

That, for me, is the real heavy lift.

Whereas embracing the struggle requires the muscles of resilience, grit, and determination, embracing ease requires strength of faith.

My real challenge is to condition a belief that it’s ok if things are easy (or, if not easy, at least not a months-long struggle).

My triumph that day was that I deadlifted 225 pounds for 5 reps.

If the path to get there was a little easier than the path to 200 or 205 for five, maybe that’s a reflection of my increasing strength and consistent dedication to training.

You’re Allowed to Have Ease

If you’re a high-achiever who already tends to put a lot of pressure on yourself, I’m guessing you don’t need a reminder that you can do hard things.

You already know this; the struggle is your comfort zone.

I’m not telling you to giver up that mindset completely. Your grit, resilience, and determination serve you well in the many areas of life that are hard, that cause you to struggle.

But struggle isn’t the only path.

Just because you don’t fail repeatedly before success doesn’t make your victory less valid or less worthy of celebration.

If you’re skilled in embracing the struggle, perhaps it’s time to “embrace the ease.”