The inspiration for the title comes from a friend's WhatsApp status, which originally reads -- I wish everything was as easy as getting fat. The rest of the post is my attempt to justify the title -- that going to the gym is easier (well, certainly not easier than getting fat) than a whole bunch of other self-improvements.
There are two components to improvement
Willingness to put effort
A method for improvement
Motivation, discipline and willpower all refer to #1. #1 is the major bottleneck for any growth or change. In our lives, we can recall countless examples of projects left in between or done half-heartedly, new year resolutions abandoned in a few days, things we would want to learn but have been putting off, and so on. However, if you overcome this bottleneck and are strongly motivated for an extended period, you will stumble on the bottleneck #2 poses.
Looking from the lens of #1, nothing worthwhile is easy, but once past it and looking from the lens of #2, I feel going to the gym is one of the easy ones.
Before we see why that is the case, let's see what makes an activity easier with respect to #2. Method of improvement can be broken down into multiple sub-headings.
Routine (what to do to improve)
Feedback & Tracking Progress
Availability of tools / coaching / mentorship
The gym checks off all of these.
Routine => One needs to be careful about their diet (stop eating certain things) and regularly go to the gym to lift weights. There is little doubt as to what to do once at the gym.
Tracking Progress => Tracking workouts, reps, weights, bf% etc.
Tools / Coaching => Easily available gym (if not home workouts are equally good). Information about diet and exercise is abundant.
Thus improving at the gym is a well structured activity. The method of improvement is concretely known. And going to the gym is not the only such activity. A similar analysis would reveal that learning an instrument or improving at a sport is well structured too. These structured activities are easier to get better at.
I'm not saying that if you had sufficient motivation and invested time and effort in a structured activity, you would become world-class. Most certainly no. Becoming world-class is a whole different thing than improving at something. In a well structured activity, you would undoubtedly see progress, at least initially, until you plateau or realize that you have lost motivation for it. However, this feedback would still be quick. You would soon know that you don't like it or can't improve.
In contrast, I find interpersonal skills hard to improve for lack of #2. For example
Being more confident
Being more assertive
Being more social
Being better at risk-taking
Being better at negotiating
Being better at conflict resolution
Translating a wish like this into actionable steps turns out to be an arduous task as well. Is there a way to systematically work on improving your confidence? What steps do I have to take exactly? A google search on "how to increase confidence" returns a list of advice such as "be kind to yourself", "don't listen to self-limited beliefs" and "gain control by facing your fears", which themselves beg for the question of "how exactly?" to arrive at actionable steps.
On top of that, the opportunities to practice it come less often. There aren't many times in your day-to-day life you can learn conflict resolution or negotiations. The opportunities that do present themselves are monumentally larger than what you are accustomed to handling. Take, for instance, risk-taking, which plays a significant part in your decision during a change of jobs. That level of risk-taking is out of the bounds of what one can prepare for. I wish every day you could go to a coach and learn to take risks for an hour. Even then, it would be challenging to create a situation that artificially matches the magnitude of risk-taking required in a career change.
And lastly, progress is tough to measure too. Months and years go by, but I am not convinced if I am becoming more confident or not. Am I more assertive than I used to be a few years ago? It isn't easy to know that reliably.
While I limit myself to interpersonal skills and hobbies in this post, this same analysis extends to careers too. Few jobs have a lot of structure -- years of training, good mentorship at the company, visible metrics of progress (promotion etc.), while others don't.
For the less structured activities, the responsibility of planning a way to improve falls back on our shoulders -- from designing our own metrics for improvement and putting ourselves in situations where we can practice the activity.
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(Edit – Found a few good posts on this topic so adding them as additional readings here)
[1] Some hard truths about soft skills (nesslabs)
[2] How to learn soft skills (lesswrong)
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Credits – Sourabh Tote for WhatsApp status which inspired the title