While you probably don’t have to make the same hard choices that an army general has to, the ideas behind this phrase may help you get through difficult situations in your life. Whether it is changing jobs or starting a new venture, these moments can involve discomfort, so you’ll need to embrace the suck to get the change that you want to have.
At MentorCruise, as a thriving community of mentors and mentees, we’ve seen how people have gotten through hard times with the help of amazing mentors, who guide them toward the path to success and teach them ways to embrace the suck.
In this article, you’ll learn about:
- What the military slang “embrace the suck” means
- Why you should embrace the suck in your professional life
- How to get over the suck, from mentorship to developing habits, to accepting being uncomfortable.
Let’s go!
Embrace the suck meaning
Military slang can be revealing for its frankness and lack of subtlety. Hardship and pain from life-and-death experiences color the language of military officials, who work in war-torn areas filled with death and trauma.
Military slang has a universal, yet strange, appeal, for better or worst. It has been appropriated across several industries for its ability to encapsulate high-anxiety situations that many of us face.
A military phrase coming from the 2003 War in Iraq, “embrace the suck” is an implied order disguised as a vulgar, yet clever, quip. It denotes the horrifying realities of being in a war and the fact that soldiers will have to face it head-on or die. It’s one of those military phrases that’s entered common usage to describe a shitty situation that one has to confront in order to solve.
“Embrace the suck” means that while the current situation sucks, you have to accept it and work toward changing it. It’s not about being in-denial, as much as accepting present discomfort for future success. To embrace the suck means to confront things that make you uncomfortable so that you can surmount it.
Why you should embrace the suck in your professional life
Everyone becomes unhappy about their career at some points in their lives.
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things by venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur Ben Horowitz, he recounts an experience that nearly prevented him from selling his company, Opsware, for millions of dollars. When he told Dave Conte, his CFO, about various options, Dave replied, “If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble.” Dave suggested that Ben took a risky decision that ended up being successful.
While the stakes may not be as high as selling a multimillion-dollar company, you still need to embrace the suck if you’re facing the following situations:
- You search on Google: “My job sucks.”
- You don’t feel fulfilled in what you do any longer.
- You don’t feel passionate about growing your company any longer.
- Just thinking about your work causes you anxiety.
- You want to switch careers.
- You need a vacation — permanently.
Embracing the suck also allows you to confront the situation now so that it doesn’t seep into other parts of your life. When we’re always so anxiety-ridden from being so conflict-avoidant, our negative state of being can also negatively affect our professional and personal relationships.
Master your fear
Life can and does suck at times; fear and indecisiveness affect everyone, including you, and including anyone; it is the fear, in the words of the author Frank Herbert that is “the mind-killer.”
The words of Frank Herbert have been written by many successful writers, entrepreneurs, and religious figures like Jesus Christ.
Overcoming fear is a way to overcome the suck of life.
You need to master your fear.
The personal development of author and entrepreneur Tony Robinson in his book Unshakeable talks about how fear cripples our decision-making regarding understanding the stock market and unleashing our potential.
The entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David is a self-made entrepreneur who made his money in insurance services, marketing, and other ventures; his wealth is $160 million He argued that the only way to become successful is to embrace the stock Patrick Bet-David in his podcast, stated that what motivated him the most was the fear of his dad dying of stress and being a failure. It is the suck of life.
The fear motivated some of the most successful men and women in history to change; it was the fear of failure that enabled their personal and professional growth.
How to get over the suck
Get help through mentorship
Sometimes, external advice is what you need to help you get out of your rut and achieve your goals.
At MentorCruise, we’ve seen how mentorship help has transformed the lives of many professionals ranging from career-changers to founders who are unsure of how to grow their startups.
To embrace the suck, you need a plan to get where you want to be. A good mentor with the right qualities for you can look at your problems and offer concrete steps for you to get where you want to be.
Change your own situation
You’re not embracing the suck if you’re accepting your current reality for what it is. Embracing the suck is a process of realization and action. Without action, you’ll end up being more miserable than you were previously.
If you don’t like your job, then look around for other opportunities. If you are in the right circumstances, quit your job. It’s easier said than done, but you need to look at your situation from an outside perspective to fully understand your emotions.
If you’re not in the right place to radically alter your situation, then start a side-project or a hobby to put your mind at ease. Otherwise, build something that will help you become self-sufficient later on.
Also, in life, we shred our friends; Dan Pina, an entrepreneur, and personal development coach says, “you can only be as successful as your most successful friend.” This doesn’t mean you give up all your friends and family. What it means is if I can show you your friends, I can show you your future.
To be successful, you will require a strong mentorship and a community that supports you; there are towns and people that do not support an individual rising up the social and economic ladder.
Be prepared to embrace the suck because success means gaining a new friend and losing old ones that were never truly your friends.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable
Finally, you will need to embrace the suck during different points of your life. The only way to pursue happiness and satisfaction is to realize that there will be obstacles when it comes to pursuing your passion. You need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. But how?
- Remember your vision. Whether you’re an intern or a founder, there will be times when you’ll be doubting yourself on whether you’re making the right choices or not. During these times, you need to remember your reason for pursuing whatever goals you have.
- Have a support group. Having a community like MentorCruise will help you get through tough times through guidance and encouragement.
- Think about the worst-case scenario. What’s the worst thing that can go wrong if you decide to pursue something? If you understand the consequences of your possible actions, then you can have a clearer perspective on what to do next.
- Act.
Master and apprentice
If you have seen Star Wars and understand who the Sith are, this analogy will make perfect sense; like Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, the apprentice must always overcome their master.
However, please do not fear; you don’t have to destroy the Death Star or throw your boss or mentor off a building. It is necessary to know that there is always a time to move out of the apprentice stage.
Our teachers or mentors may not necessarily have our interests at heart due to their interests and reluctance to let the apprentices go their own way.
The writer Robert Greene wrote several books, his most famous being the 48 Laws of Power and his book Mastery on skills development and skills acquisition, as well as the importance of mentorship, is his most recent book called Mastery.
Learn new skills if you don’t know what you want
Offline and online, there are so many ways to learn new skills. You can start making and selling candles, start running marathons, or even go scuba diving. This lets you diversify your interests to keep you less anxious. When you have a clearer mind, you have a better view of things.
Otherwise, you can also learn new monetizable skills to work toward changing your situation, such as changing careers or becoming an entrepreneur. Online platforms like Udacity, Coursera and Codecademy can teach you how to code. MentorCruise has programming mentors to help you succeed in your coding journey.
Whatever your reasons are, it’s always a good idea to learn a new skill if you have some free time. Who knows. You might discover a new, life-changing talent.
Develop habits to encourage change
Change is the only thing that’s constant. When you’re in a sucky situation, learn to operate within a mindset of execution. This will allow you to quickly identify the things that make you unhappy and effectively proceed toward committing to change.
One of the ways to profoundly change your life and embrace the suck is through habit formation. If a personal habit makes you unhappy or negatively affects your professional life, work toward developing a habit that will counteract this.
There is a lot of literature on habit formation, including James Clear’s popular Atomic Habits or Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. The fundamentals remain the same:
- Start simple
- Commit to 3-4 weeks of performing that habit until it becomes second nature to you.
- Make sure that committing to the habit is as frictionless as possible.
Story of Arnold Schwarzenegger
More exercise can make you more efficient and productive in your professional and personal time. Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American actor, film producer, businessman, former bodybuilder, and politician.
When the ex-governor Schwarzenegger first came to America in 1968, he was not famous but purely had the support of his local bodybuilding and fitness community fitness.
His dedication to personal development enabled his great success in bodybuilding. It led to more remarkable achievements in the movie industry and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to become governor of California from 2003 to 2011.
By looking at the personal journey of Arnold Schwarzenegger, we can see how his dedication to personal development through his pursuit of personal fitness and bodybuilding led to his success in the movie industry which enabled him to have the wealth and fame to become the governor of California.
To embrace the suck, one must be aware of the difference between personal and professional development. Personal development can lead to professional success, fame, or wealth
However, one man’s journey is not a guaranteed roadmap for success. To be successful, you must use your time wisely; for example, Albert Einstein worked in a post office because he had the free time in that position to become a professional physicist.
Understanding your context
To find the right mentor with MentorCruise, you must first define your goal, time, and abilities to determine what you want to do and succeed in. For example, suppose you are 25 years old.
In that case, there is the possibility that you could potentially become the world heavyweight champion like Rocky Marciano. If you are 5 foot one with tiny hands, it is unlikely that you could become the world heavyweight champion, but there will be a better possibility of becoming a lightweight champion.
By understanding your strengths, weaknesses, and time, you can apply your time and your current skill set into requiring skills. The ideal goal would be to develop a high-paying skill set; for example, in the United Kingdom, it is £52,000 a year, enabling an individual to live without financial concerns.
In contrast, in the United States, it will be $95,000 a year or $100,000 a year depending on the state you are living in or living costs though this can vary due to inflation and the housing market. I am giving you the full facts so that you can embrace the suck, which is and will be painful.
To succeed, you must first suffer pain; you must choose the pain you are willing to live with. You have three options;
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the first is to walk away and live your life the way you have always lived your life like everyone else.
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The second option is to embark on a program of personal and professional development to have a private life that enables you to live a lifestyle without fear.
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Finally, the most painful and most rewarding option is once you reach a level of career success, move into the path of entrepreneurship that can give you the most freedom after you have built up the skills to become your own man or woman. This is why MentorCruise provides mentors on your journey to success.
About to embrace the suck?
Are you about to make a life-changing decision, embrace the suck and change things for the better? If you need mentorship to guide you to your goals, try MentorCruise and ask for help.