The Answers to Hard Questions
The answers to hard questions that are comfortable, are very rarely the answers that are going to work to move you toward the changes that you seek to make.
The answers to hard questions that are safe, are rarely the answers you need to hear to jolt you out of your stasis and reliance on the status quo.
The hard questions aren’t ones that you just need to think about harder, to get to a binary answer.
Binary answers.
“What the other party wants to hear” answers.
“Feel good” answers.
Wrong answers.
Right answers.
The compelling issue is not that the questions are hard, or that they are scary.
The issue is that the answers frighten you because of their implications around responsibility, accountability, safety, and security.
But the only way out of a conflict is to go further in.
Thinking harder about a binary answer isn’t the way to get to more resolution.
Neither is thinking about how to structure the answer to get the other party on your side.
Sometimes, answering the hard question really requires you to pick an answer, stand up, and courageously defend it.
The answers to hard questions that are predictable and time-tested, are the answers you need to execute on, because they are the ones that work, and they are the ones you’ve spent a while ignoring, not taking action on, or dismissing outright.
Yes, there will be consequences to accomplishing what it is that the hard answers are asking of you.
But, are you tired of being comfortable, yet?
