What If You Liked The Struggle?

Most people start breakup recovery with fire in their belly. They’re motivated. They’re doing the work. They see progress. They even feel optimistic for the first time in weeks.

And then life punches them in the face. They hit a setback. The ex posts something that guts them. Old patterns creep back in. Motivation evaporates. And before they know it, they’re back to stalking social media at 2 AM and texting friends “do you think they miss me?”

So here’s one way to make breakup recovery faster: make the struggle more enjoyable.

I know how that sounds. Your heart’s been ripped out of your chest and I’m telling you to “enjoy” the process? But hear me out…

A friend once told me: “Unless you find a way to enjoy working out, you’re never going to stick with it.”

Simple. Obvious. Mind-blowing for me at the time.

I had spent years forcing myself through workouts from various fitness programs. I either disliked it or hated it, wondering why I kept quitting. The answer was right there: I was trying to endure something either boring as shit or miserable instead of making it enjoyable. And it wasn’t until I found an interesting and fun fitness program that my consistency returned and my results shot up.

This applies to everything difficult in life:

• Unless you enjoy the long hours and financial risk of entrepreneurship, you won’t succeed as an entrepreneur.
• Unless you enjoy thousands of hours of practice and constant rejection, you won’t become a successful musician.
• Unless you enjoy the discomfort of vulnerability, you won’t build deep relationships.

And unless you find a way to make breakup recovery at least somewhat enjoyable, you won’t endure it well.

Now sure, the breakup itself isn’t fun. The initial grief? Fucking terrible. But the process of healing and rebuilding yourself? That can be engaging, meaningful, even exciting. That’s what I want you to focus on. That’s what we want to manipulate.

So how can you spice things up a bit? Here some concrete ways to do it:

• Gamify it. Track your habits. Celebrate streaks. Give yourself points for showing up when you don’t feel like it. Compete with yourself from last week. Turn recovery into a game you’re determined to win.
• Make it social. Join a community. Share your progress (not your drama). Have people rooting for you. Accountability makes hard things easier and more rewarding.
• Reframe setbacks as data. Every time you fuck up, you learn something about yourself. Every small win is proof you’re changing. You’re running experiments on your own life. Get curious about what works and what doesn’t.
• Find the humor. Laugh at your own drama instead of drowning in it. Some of the shit you’re obsessing over is objectively ridiculous. Let yourself see that. Comedy and tragedy are closer than you think.
• Document it. Journal. Film yourself. Turn this into a story you’re proud of instead of something you’re trying to forget.
• Build an identity around resilience. Start seeing yourself as someone who thrives on challenge. Someone who eats shit and smiles about it. The more you prove this identity to yourself and others, the more it becomes true. You’ll start taking on challenges just to show yourself you can.

At the end of the day, everything I write about breakup recovery — overcoming pain, being happier, defining your values, finding purpose, building better habits, finding your people, and so on — these all make the struggle more meaningful and manageable.

But you have to find ways to make it enjoyable too.

Try it out.

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