Do you ever notice some around you have a natural ability to pick up something with ease? At work there may be someone that can get up in front of the audience and wow the crowd with little effort at all. In the holiday musical there may be a voice that can hit an incredible range with little formal training. At the workout facility there may be someone that walks into the gym and can immediately throw around a bunch of weight without thinking or warming up.

I’ve started to notice this idea of being natural at something more and more as my kids continue to grow. Reading, math, sports, music – you start picking up on whether a kid seems to grasp it quickly with little effort or whether each step of progress is a slow and sometimes a painful one. Some paths are a smooth road ahead while others feel like a steep climb. As a parent it’s great to see my kids pick up something they enjoy so quickly and start to excel, but the life lessons I’m seeing are coming from those situations where they are far from “natural” at it.

Start by taking 15-30 seconds to reflect back on some of your biggest accomplishments. Did these accomplishments require minimal effort? I would guess not because our mind tends to value something accomplished through hard work and perseverance much more than accomplishments of ease. While the path of ease can bring comfort, a path of difficulty can bring us growth and fulfillment.

When difficulty is introduced into the equation, a greater sense of effort, focus, and willingness to extend yourself are needed for success. To put it simply, we learn more about ourselves and what we can become capable of.

Consider this mindset shift – instead of asking for something to be easy, ask from yourself to find ways to strengthen your shoulders on what you can bear. When we take on the path of difficulty, there will be inevitable failures mixed in with some winning. If we maintain our learner mindset, short-term winning will be nothing compared to all the long-term gain from lessons learned during failure.

As these lessons learned continue to pile up, self-awareness continues to build, and we find ways to transfer these lessons learned to other parts of our lives. Lessons learned as a leader can help you become a better spouse or parent. Lessons learned coaching your kids can help you become more disciplined when it comes to your own health and wellness. Lessons learned spiritually can help you become a stronger community member.

While it’s human behavior to want to be more of a natural at the endeavors you take on, just remember the long-term learning and growth from being unnatural at something can be such a prized possession. More self-awareness, mindset that facing difficulty is a norm, and the belief that we can do hard things will pay dividends well beyond any short-term gains of being natural at something.

Take your step: the next time you try something new in any aspect of your life and feel awkward and anything but natural at it, take a moment to challenge your mindset. While wishing for ease in picking up something new is natural, see beyond the short term. Challenge yourself to see that if something is challenging, the lessons learned from the experience and about yourself are so much more valuable than simply coasting through something. Mindset matters.