Same Sh*t, Different Day
What no one tells you about doing hard things.
We glorify beginnings. We celebrate endings. But what about the long, messy middle? This is a story about the part no one talks about. And why doing hard things is the best way to get what really matters, out of your life.
The great thing about giving a motivational speech is that you're not just talking to the audience; you're also talking to yourself.
Last week, I stood in front of the Kraft Heinz team to speak about doing hard things. Because I needed reminding too: hard things are worth it.
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
— C.S. Lewis
I agree. Wholeheartedly.
But don’t be fooled. An ‘extraordinary destiny’ takes extraordinary effort.
The Myth of the Challenge
“Challenges are romanticised”, I explained to the audience.
We are conditioned to think of challenges as heroic. Short lived. Fraught with intense pain, grief, and turmoil. Requiring exceptionally high levels of will power and determination to ‘make it through’.
Which is a problem.
Because, challenges are rarely so succinct or acute. To expect them to be ‘short-and-sharp’ will leave you unprepared when you face some of life’s messier challenges. Think grief or chronic illness. The start-up that takes 15 years to get off the ground. They drag. They are rarely linear. And, those motivational slogans: ‘push hard and get it done!’; ‘no pain, no gain’; ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!’ lose their charm when you say them day, after day, after day.
To make sense of doing hard things, I’ve learned to think of them in three parts.
A beginning. A middle. An end.
And not to underestimate the immense challenge of the mundane.
The Beginning: Suspense and Fear
Leaving the dock is terrifying. It takes immense willpower to take the leap when you’re fraught with fear. Should you go? Should you stay? What’s over the horizon? So much unknown. So many questions.
Anyone slipping lines and setting sail into the unknown needs a kind of divine faith. A faith that there is more out there, than here. It’s a poetic moment. A wonderfully idealistic beginning. Requiring courage, bravery. One sharp leap.
20th August 2017
The sound of waves filled the room. It was 5am and my alarm had just gone off. I reached to press the button on the side of my phone. Like a child playing peek-a-boo who doesn’t think you can see them if they can’t see you, I buried my head back in the pillow. On last opportunity to hide.
I sat up in bed. Holding down the button that controlled the blinds (what an ironic juxtaposition), the Liverpool morning light streamed through the window.
“Alright Nik. You’ve got this,” I whispered to myself looking out at the sky. A big breath in. A big release out. A restrained attempt to expel my nerves.
Race starts are scary. This one, the scariest yet. I considered what I was about to embark on. In a few hours, the adventure of my life was about to begin with a 7000-mile race to Uruguay. Four or five weeks living, working, sleeping, eating, blogging, teaching, answering emails, and surviving on a damp, salty, uncomfortable 70-foot space with 22 near-strangers who kind of could sail. My choice of career felt questionable in that moment.
I looked around the room. All my clothes - my waterproof socks, my fluorescent green crew t-shirt (uniform), my thermals - were spread around the room drying. In classic fashion, I had left my laundry until the last minute.
For the adventurous among us, these moments tear through our souls. One half of me wanted desperately to stay in that warm comfy bed. To saunter down to breakfast, and watch race start from dry shore and wave goodbye to the intrepid Clipper Race teams as they embark on their race around the world. To share in their adventure, without actually having to do it myself. But then the other half of me felt so ready. After months of preparation and anticipation, I was excited! This was my journey. A force greater than anything I could comprehend was pulling me out there. Was I seeking something? Or was it luring me in?
An hour later, I was walking down to the boats with Mum and Dad. Feeling sick.
“It’s just like driving you to your piano exams when you were younger,” my mum said jovially. It didn’t feel the best time to relive my adolescence. But it was an astute observation. How clever fear’s spells are. I knew that faint, lightheaded, nauseating feeling so well. The same identical feeling I had on my first day of school, on my first date with a boy at the cinema, and now at the start of the most dangerous, high risk, high responsibility challenge I had ever faced.
“Ah.” I thought to myself. “So, if those pesky nerves all feel the same, irrespective of their risk, then I suppose … is it just a game?” But, just because I knew it was a game, didn’t mean I knew how to win it. I shut the voices of self-doubt away. For later…
We were delaying the goodbye. Savouring even five more minutes together. I was holding my mum’s hand for the first time in 10 years. Liverpool’s Albert Docks came into sight, and I stopped.
"Let's do it here before anyone can see me. Once I'm in there, everyone will be watching." Tucked behind a statue overlooking the River Mersey we said our goodbyes. First, I embraced Dad. So tightly. As if to squeeze out every last bit of comfort. Then holding back the tears, I curled down into my mum’s shoulder and whispered, "I'm scared. Mummy.”
“What are you scared of?” she whispered back. Which was, admittedly, an odd question to ask considering what I was about to face.
“What if I come last?”
”What if I’m at the back?”
”What if I mess it all up?”
“I know sweetheart. But trust yourself.” Peeling her body away from mine, arms stretched out, hands either side of my shoulders, Mum looked into my eyes. “You know how to do this.”
Discomfort, an immense weight of responsibility, wind holes, isolation, the loneliness of leadership, storms, wind holes, dark nights, a risk of death, starvation, piracy – all awaited me. But what was I afraid of? “Coming last and looking silly”. Those that thought I was too young, too female, too naïve. What if they were right?
There are two things I try to remember before embarking on a challenge.
Our greatest fear is often not of danger itself - but the voice inside our heads.
That fear is usually - somewhere down the line - about love. Belonging. Acceptance. And that kind of fear is rarely anything to do about the level of danger that awaits.
The pain of the beginning is short lived. The acute struggle of the start disappears with the horizon. Once the escape hatch is gone, you’re in it. And, then the pain mellows.
The Middle: The Grind
The beginning build cinematic tension.
The end is dramatic.
But the middle is where the real work happens.
And yet, we barely talk about it!
Not because it’s unimportant. But, because it’s unglamorous. Boring. Repetitive. It’s the place where self-doubt festers. Where motivation dwindles. It’s the slog. The part with no clear end in sight. The grind.
Just think of a founders’ story. We know the script:
They re-mortgage their house, pull all-nighters, live off canned fish in a van. Then? Either they make it big and do TED talks in tailored suits. Or they fail spectacularly, and later turn that into a bestselling book.
What’s missing, is the part in between.
The five years of “same shit, different day.” The trudge goes on. It doesn’t make for great headlines. It’s too exhausting to talk about while it’s happening. And it’s too boring to write about once it's done.
That middle bit is where most people give up. Not at the start, where excitement carries you. Not at the end, when the finish line is in sight. But in the swamp of uncertainty.
The interesting thing about the challenge of going to sea, is you can’t give up. There is no option to quit. And so, you have to figure out how to get through. How to suffer and endure. How to stay motivated. [Read on!]
The End: Relief and Meaning
Eventually the end comes.
Maybe it’s triumphant and you receive a hero’s welcome. Maybe you land humbled, just grateful just to have made it. Maybe you broke the boat, and crawl ashore. Or maybe you don’t make it at all, and it becomes a tale of loss and transformation.
But whatever the ending, the unknown becomes known. The challenge becomes a story.
And the thing I’ve realised? It’s always a good ending. Challenges always deliver something that makes life better, in the end.
Why Do We Do Hard Things?
I’ve made a career out of doing hard things, and helping others do the same.
Sailing with a crew of strangers is like spending 24 hours a day in front of a mirror that reflects not just your appearance, but your emotions, your baggage, and your internal compass.
Doing hard things is the most efficient form of self-discovery.
Hard things don’t change who you are.
They reveal it.
And, I think that’s why I fell in love with sailing. I was addicted to pushing myself. And I loved watching others go through the same process. Going to sea offers a chance to look at life from the other side of the shore. This shift in perspective, even if it’s just by 1 degree, can change everything.
My Next Challenge
In the coming months, I’m going to slip my metaphorical lines from the shore of “I’m going to finish my book,” to “I am finishing my book.”
And when the grind sets in — and it will — I’ll remind myself of what I told the audience last week:
“So why do we do hard things? Why push ourselves, when we could just settle? Why show up again after we’ve failed? Why trudge through the swamp, struggling, without knowing exactly how far the journey will be?
Because, hard things always deliver a good result. They make life real. They wake us up. They connect us — to parts of ourselves we didn’t know, to the people beside us, and to something greater than us.
And, in doing so, we realise what is really important in life. It’s about belonging. Becoming. Showing up, doing real things, with people who matter.
So wherever you’re headed next — I hope it asks you to be brave.
And, I hope it’s hard.
Great read Nikki. We are currently repairing our wooden 56' ketch and the most common expression people use for the seemingly endless challenge is "A labor of love" but really it's "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." The hard stuff is definitely awesome in the end.
My Clipper Race experience taught me many things, but perhaps the most profound was this: appreciate the present—live fully in every moment.
That’s why defining a clear beginning, middle, and end to this personal adventure feels nearly impossible for me.
In my corporate life, I often find myself caught between the past and the future—answering questions about events that happened six months ago or predicting what might occur six months ahead. Too often, the present slips by, unnoticed.
But with Clipper, when did it really begin? Was it the moment I heard about the race for the second time and finally said yes? Was it when I nervously arrived in Gosport for Level 1 training? Or was it, three years later, when I finally stepped aboard—delayed but undeterred by a global pandemic?
And what was the middle? Was it the months of preparation on land—the gym obsession (as my wife liked to call it), the meticulous study of the training manual, the deep dive into sailing books? Or was it the race itself—each leg thrilling, difficult, and deeply rewarding?
The challenges—ranging from the nuisance of fruit flies to the terror of lightning strikes and the chaos of epic broaches—are what made the journey unforgettable. It was in those moments, both big and small, that the experience etched itself into my memory.
For some, the final podium celebration marked the end. But not for me. That was just one moment in a story still unfolding.
Though I now live across the pond from many of my crewmates, the bonds we forged remain strong. We've reunited for parties, sailing adventures, and even more racing—drawn together by a connection that time and distance can’t erase.
Even now, three years after the race officially “ended,” I still wear my Race Crew wristband. It’s more than a keepsake—it’s a quiet reminder that the journey is never truly over.