Walking uphill is a workout—but it's not always a sign you're going somewhere good.

Some degree of challenge is healthy. Desired, even. It's the feeling of growth, of leveling up. But there's a difference between growth hard and wrong path hard.

Sometimes you want to feel like you're walking downhill. Like the work is flowing, not fighting.

I think about San Francisco—you can take the hill or you can take the flat road to the same destination. Smart locals take the hills down. They use gravity instead of battling it.

That's the move: climb when you need to reach a new peak. But don't grind uphill out of habit, mistaking struggle for virtue. You'll exhaust yourself climbing hills that lead nowhere.

Work with gravity when you can. Save the climbs for when they count.