Do the hard stuff NOW

I’ve followed Professor Grant Schofield for years now - listening to his podcasts, reading his work, and deeply admiring his push for a preventative healthcare model here in New Zealand.

One where we stop outsourcing responsibility for our health until something goes wrong.

One where we move from reactive healthcare to proactive ownership. Aspiring not to just live longer, but to live more good years - unmarred by ailments, joint pain and medicated disease management.

His latest book, Choose Your Hard, captures this idea perfectly. At its core, the message is simple. It’s far easier to do a little bit of hard stuff now than deal with a whole lot of hard stuff later.

Eating well, moving your body, managing stress, sleeping properly etc. etc. are all things that can feel inconvenient in the moment, especially in a world wired for immediate gratification, but they become infinitely harder to achieve when you’re later navigating things like chronic stress, burnout, pain, disease and mobility constraints.

It's common sense but most of us aren't choosing 'hard' now. 1 in 4 New Zealanders live with multiple long-term conditions, many of which are combinations of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure (collectively known as cardiovascular disease or CVD risk factors).

Caveat, I have not finished the book yet but it got me thinking about the Yale University Public Health Behaviour Change paper I did - that humans are biologically wired toward “short-term gain, long-term pain.”

We know what’s good for us, but our brains heavily prioritise what feels rewarding right now (that vape helps me deal with discomfort now, scrolling feels easier than talking, Uber Eats is faster than cooking, skipping my workout feels better than doing it).

Behaviour change is hard and sustainable health outcomes rarely come from motivation alone. They come from changing environments, reducing friction, and aligning behaviours with values. Things like:
- Setting up cues and reminders
- Making healthy choices more convenient (and unhealthy ones less so)
- Building routines slowly
- Linking habits to reward (star charts don't just work on kids!)
- Creating accountability
- Focusing on consistency over perfection

Schofield’s work echoes this beautifully. Health isn’t something we magically arrive at. It’s built - often quietly and imperfectly - through repeated (often hard'ish' - at least to begin with) daily choices.

And while doing the hard stuff now can feel uncomfortable, it’s often what creates the freedom, mobility, energy and wellbeing we want later.

Because eventually, one way or another, we all have to do hard things. The question is whether we choose them proactively now OR have them chosen for us later...

Highly recommend the read!