Ahhh that lines up with a thought I had recently: you get out of life what you put into it. I am beginning to believe that there's some kind of metaphysical rule here that is true everywhere, all the time.
So maybe the solution is: find the hardest stuff to do and do the crap out of it.
The followup thought / concern that occurs: what if the number of hard things is going down?
I really don't think that's true, you can put a lot of effort into a wrongheaded strategy, netting you no or bad results.
Conversely, a good strategy can get you good results without that much effort.