By Scott Reddoch
A friend of mine signed up to run a marathon. We were talking about it one day and he commented that I could never run a marathon. He didn’t know that I was a closet runner. I had run numerous 5ks and two half marathons. I accepted the challenge.
The training schedule I started was grueling. Although I started training in spring, the humidity had already become a topic of conversation. I couldn’t imagine what I would do in summer, the humidity was ridiculous.
The entire track was shaded by large oak trees. There was a point where someone had planted three pines. They were taller than all of the other trees and home to many squirrels and a bunch of crows. I think that it is really cool that a bunch of crows isn’t called a flock, it’s called a murder.
Anyway the crows were bigger than any crows that I had seen, they were midnight black and deadly looking.
There was a bench nearby and people would sit and feed those monsters bread. The poor squirrels wouldn’t come near them and I am pretty sure that they have killed people before. I hate those crows.
I thought those crows were scary, but watching them feed was absolutely terrifying. These giant crows would perch together high up in a tree and swoop down all at once. Once on the ground they would hop around being all scary and scream at each other while eating little pieces of bread. I called this crowmageddon.
One day I saw this crow perched in the tree that wouldn’t swoop down for bread like the rest. I figured that this crow was plotting. I couldn’t tell them apart which was concerning because I knew that it was up to something.
My fears were correct. What I now call the Crow King had seen someone forget an entire loaf of bread on the bench. The Crow King swoops down for this and begins pecking a hole in the plastic wrapper containing the bread. Once a hole was made it would eat all the bread it wanted. When the others noticed and started hopping over, the Crow King just flew back to the top of the tree. I didn’t know that this was like a shark smelling blood in the water. I knew that crow was up to something.
It was a couple of weeks and the Crow King began its reign of terror. The top of the tall pines served as an excellent vantage point for victim selection. That view allowed the Crow King to craft perfect ambushes.
It waited for the right moment, the other crows were distracted by the small bits of bread, but not the Crow King.
An unsuspecting father and daughter were walking on the trail to the bench. The daughter was carrying a loaf of sandwich bread. She was swinging it back and forth as she stepped. This was the moment the Crow King had been waiting for. It flew so quickly that the crow just seemed to appear. Although the loaf of bread was the objective, it attacked the girl’s face pecking for an eye. The crow knew to do this because it spawned from pure evil. The dad tried to defend his child but the Crow King was quite a fighter, and just flew around continuing the melee. Finally the girl dropped the bread and they ran away. The Crow King had just committed its first bread snatching and liked it.
Doing the hard stuff is one of the best ways to build real confidence. Taking the undesirable or difficult project will pull you out of your comfort zone. It feels great when you can complete it, and most would expect to fail so multiple attempts may be expected by most. Of course your failure and success create personal growth. Every win reinforces belief in your abilities and builds the self trust to tackle harder tasks.
Confidence built from completing easy tasks can be fragile, while confidence built from doing the hard stuff is more resilient and helps you to be ready to face adversity. When you accomplish something difficult or once thought out of reach, it rewires how you see yourself. You stop focusing on limitations and start seeing yourself as someone who can overcome them. That mindset shift affects challenges in all areas of life.
Doing the hard stuff will teach you to try and fail, which is crucial in building real confidence. Setbacks happen when anyone pushes their boundaries. Failure is part of the process. You owe it to yourself to try the hard stuff. After all, the bread tastes better when you earn it.
