Skills Guide
Teaching: Valuing Doing Hard Things
Valuing Doing Hard Things
Why This Skill Matters
Valuing doing hard things is essential to resilience because growth requires discomfort. Students who avoid difficulty often miss opportunities to build confidence and skill. Teaching students to value challenge helps them see effort as meaningful rather than something to avoid.
Student Challenges This Skill Helps Address
- Avoidance of effort
- Fear of challenge
- Giving up when tasks are difficult
How WhyTry Builds This Skill
WhyTry reinforces the value of challenge through Hard Work & Determination, which emphasizes effort over shortcuts, and Responsibility & Self-Discipline, which frames difficulty as strength-building. Facilitators help students reframe hard work as an investment in resilience.
Hard Work & Determination
(“Desire, Time, & Effort”)
In Hard Work & Determination, students learn that meaningful growth requires effort and discomfort. Facilitators guide students to reflect on times when doing something difficult led to increased confidence or opportunity. Processing emphasizes that resilience is built when students learn to value challenge rather than avoid it, reframing hard work as an investment in their future.
Responsibility & Self-Discipline
(“Lift the Weight”)
Responsibility & Self-Discipline reinforces this skill by helping students understand that expectations and responsibility build strength. Facilitators guide reflection on how choosing responsibility—even when it’s uncomfortable—leads to trust, freedom, and self-respect. This processing supports resilience by normalizing effort and challenge as part of growth.