Internal Workplace Calm through doing Hard Things
Internal Workplace Calm Through Doing Hard Things
The best way to change how work feels is not to change your job. It is to introduce harder things into the rest of your life.
This is not a topic you will find covered often in the project management community, the tech world, or the white collar workplace in general. We are going to talk about lifting weights and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Stay with me.
One of the most common challenges professionals face is maintaining composure through difficult moments. Changing priorities, unexpected setbacks, interpersonal friction, and general adversity are part of daily work life for most people. And for most people, those challenges hit harder than they probably should.
The parenting analogy worth thinking about
Context shapes how we experience difficulty.
As a new parent, I have been consuming a lot of parenting content. One piece recently stuck with me. It made the point that when a toddler has an intense reaction to something you consider trivial, like you leaving the room or dropping a toy, their reaction is actually rational. Relative to their total life experience, that may genuinely be the worst thing that has ever happened to them.
The same logic applies to adults. For most people, the hardest things they face every day happen at work. When their partner asks about their day at dinner, the answer is almost always a work story. Work is the arena where most adults encounter their greatest friction, their biggest frustrations, and their most difficult moments. That context matters.
The fix is outside the office
You do not have to change your workplace. You have to change what you do outside of it.
There is a way to dramatically improve your experience at work without changing a single thing about the job itself. Introduce genuinely hard things into your life outside of work. Things that are harder, more uncomfortable, and more demanding than anything your job will throw at you. When you do, the workplace challenges that used to feel overwhelming start to feel manageable.
I do heavy weight training and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Weight training requires me to push past mental barriers on a regular basis. Jiu Jitsu puts me in physical competition three times a week, spiking my adrenaline and requiring me to think clearly while under real stress. After that, a difficult meeting or a derailed project timeline simply does not register the same way.
The broader point
Hard things build tolerance. Tolerance builds composure. Composure is a professional superpower.
It does not have to be weightlifting or martial arts. The specific activity matters less than the principle. Find something that genuinely challenges you, requires you to push through discomfort, and demands something from you mentally and physically. The benefits extend well beyond the gym or the mat. You will carry that resilience into every room you walk into.
