Getting Hard vs Getting Soft: a system of dealing with what the world throws at you

An ancient Indian parable goes like this: A man wants to go on a long journey, but the earth is covered in thorns. He has two options — one is to pave his road forward, to tame all of nature into compliance. The other is to make sandals. Making sandals is the creative solution, it comes from the Soft zone.

I came across this idea of what sports psychologists refer to as the Soft Zone in the book, The Art of Learning, by Joshua Waitzkin. The book is a gem and teaches you about the psychology needed for becoming a top performer in any given field. It’s well worth a read.

The Zones

The Soft Zone is the ability to get past obstacles by bending rather than being rigid. By contrast, the Hard Zone is when you require the outside conditions to be perfect to achieve maximum performance. The Soft Zone is usually a better choice, but not always. So I decided to do a little testing to find out when I should get hard and when I should get soft, here’s what I found out.

First, a few examples to work with:

Your boss makes an unreasonable request of you.

Soft approach → ignore how unreasonable this is, put on some music and get to work getting it done. AKA become a pushover.

Hard approach → point out how unreasonable this is, suggest some alternative solutions, hope she responds positively.

Your significant other wants too much of your time.

Soft approach → accept spending more time with them, but channel that time into doing something new, maybe learning to do pottery, going surfing, or learning a new language.

Hard approach → explain to them that you’re very busy and if they really cared about you they would understand that right now you need to focus on something else.

Someone steals your phone.

Soft approach → accept that whoever stole your phone probably has much, much less than you. Think of your phone as an involuntary donation. Decide you should do more for the community.

Hard approach → get properly pissed. Call the police, file a police report, bitch about it to your friends.

In two of these cases the Soft Approach is the clear winner, I’m sure you can guess which ones. A lot of the most successful people I’ve met take the Soft Approach when they’re dealt with difficulty. We all have a limited amount of mental energy. I think the reason the Soft Approach works so often is because rather than expending mental energy fighting the problem, we accept the problem whole-heartedly and instead put that mental energy towards solutions. You must accept the problem if you want to use the Soft Approach.

Choosing in the gray area

But let’s take the first example which has a bit of a gray area. In the case of your boss making an unreasonable request, both approaches are valid and can lead to different outcomes. Let’s say that your boss wants you to do the work of a coworker who is out sick. If you take the Soft Approach, you accept that this request is just part of the job and an opportunity to show your skill at something difficult.

However, the downside of this is that your boss can take advantage of you. Once she see’s that you’re capable of taking on more tasks, she can pour on more work knowing that you’ll do it without a fuss. You risk becoming a pushover.

In this case it might be better to take the Hard Approach. You stand up for yourself and explain that if you’re going to do double the work you should get double the pay. This can work, but chances are it’s not likely. A lot of people neglect to be problem solvers and instead just become problem echoers.

Being Hard and Soft at the same time

There’s a reason your boss asked you to take on this work: a) they think you’re capable b) this work needs to be done. If you’re going to take the Hard Approach, do it in a creative way. Maybe you can’t be paid double, but maybe she’ll allow you to work from home to concentrate better. In that case you can bust your ass at home and prove that you work twice as well from home. All of a sudden what would have been a drag has earned you the right to work remotely one day a week. Congratulations, you just turned the Hard Approach into the Soft Approach.

Getting soft is sexy

The Soft Approach is really about trying to find a way to make an obstacle into an opportunity. You might get annoyed that the world has thrown you a curve ball or you might realize that you’re still capable of hitting that curve ball out of the park, all you have to do is adjust your swing.

A lot of people get upset because they believe that’s how they’ll make changes to their world. If someone upsets you, you get upset, they realize they’ve upset you, and they change their ways. Unfortunately as we all know that’s rarely how it works.

Let’s finish with another metaphor: A twig is rigid and strong. It can stand up on its own, but should a storm come by it will strain and snap in half. A blade of grass is not nearly as strong, but it can bend and survive hurricane-force winds to grow another day.

If you want to give the Soft Approach a try, here are 3 questions I always ask when choosing how to react to something:

1. Will getting mad make a meaningful long-term change in this situation? Keyword here is long-term, there’s no point in short-term solutions just to face the same problem again and again.
2. Have I thought of more than one solution/reaction to this situation? Usually thinking of three very different solutions is the sweet spot.
3. Why has this situation happened? Maybe it’s too late to change it right now, but I can do something in the future to avoid it happening in the first place.