Making Sense of Discomfort

Good morning, Sensemakers!

Today, we will make sense of:

• Why we avoid discomfort, even when we know it may be good for us
• Why more discomfort does not always mean more growth
• How to find the right amount for where you are now

But first...

The sauna is my favourite voluntary discomfort.

For years, I struggled to explain what I do for a living.

Coach? Trainer? Mentor? None of those labels quite captures it.

A few years ago, I printed a batch of business cards with Discomfort Specialist as my occupation.

At parties, sometimes I use a funny version:

It usually gets a laugh. But it is not entirely a joke.

The deeper I go into my work with people, the more I see my role as helping them choose the level of discomfort that will move them forward.

If that sounds simple, it is not.

Too little discomfort and nothing changes.

Too much and we shut down.

And the right amount is different for everyone.

Actually, it is different for the same person from one day to the next.

Something that feels manageable when you are rested and confident may feel impossible after a week of poor sleep, stress, and too many things competing for your attention.

That is why I do not believe we grow simply by learning to tolerate more pain.

We grow by learning to choose the right discomfort.

The important word is not discomfort.

It is right.

Why does this matter?

We have a strange relationship with effort.

We try to avoid it. Yet we often value things more because they required effort.

Think about something you are genuinely proud of.

Chances are, it was not easy.

Psychologists call this the effort paradox. Effort feels like a cost while we are making it, but it can also add meaning and value to the result.

Of course, that does not make all effort useful.

Sometimes discomfort means that we are adapting.

Sometimes it means that we are doing too much, too soon.

And sometimes it is simply pain without a good reason behind it.

The difficult part is knowing which is which.

One useful way to think about it is the difference between a challenge and a threat.

When you believe you have enough resources to meet the situation, it feels like a challenge.

When the demands feel greater than what you can handle, the same situation starts to feel like a threat.

This is why “no pain, no gain” has never made much sense to me.

The hardest possible workout is not automatically the best one.

The most demanding plan is not necessarily the most effective.

And pushing yourself until you never want to do something again is rarely a sign of good planning.

We talked about this in The Secret Power of Your... Minimum.

Your optimum is what you can do when everything goes according to plan.

Your minimum is what keeps you going when life does not cooperate.

Discomfort works in a similar way.

The useful amount is not the most you can tolerate once. It is the amount you can return to consistently.

Where am I now?

This is the question I keep coming back to when I work with someone:

Not for the person they were last year.

Not for the person they think they should be.

For the person sitting in front of me today.

The answer changes with health, sleep, stress, experience, confidence, trust, and everything else happening in life.

There is another question that helps us find it.

It is the question from So What?

Discomfort is much easier to accept when it serves an answer that matters to us.

Without one, even a sensible action can begin to feel like punishment.

That is when “I already know” becomes a convenient place to hide.

I know I should move more.

I know sleep is important.

I know I need to have that conversation.

Most of us do not have a shortage of information.

I know many smart, educated people who keep collecting more data, explanations, podcasts, books, and expert opinions.

Eventually, all that information becomes warm glue.

It gives them the feeling that they are moving while holding them in exactly the same place.

They probably do not need another explanation.

They may need a useful amount of discomfort.

What can I do?

Let’s try something simple.

Write down three things you know would be good for you and that you would like to become part of who you are.

For example:

• I am someone who walks after dinner.
• I am someone who goes to bed at roughly the same time.
• I am someone who has difficult conversations instead of postponing them.

Write them as identities, not just tasks.

This connects to the question behind What Kind of 80-Year-Old Are You Preparing to Become?:

Now put a number from 1 to 10 next to each statement.

How challenging does this feel for you right now?

Do not overthink the number. This is not a scientific test. We are simply trying to make an invisible feeling a little easier to see.

A 1 to 3 probably feels manageable.

A 4 to 6 may be a useful stretch.

A 7 to 8 may need a smaller first step or more support.

A 9 to 10 will probably end in avoidance, frustration, or shutdown.

Now choose one.

Not all three.

Ask yourself:

If walking for thirty minutes feels like an eight, would ten minutes feel like a five?

If a difficult conversation feels overwhelming, could you begin by writing down the one sentence you need to say?

You are not trying to remove all discomfort.

You are adjusting the dial.

You want enough discomfort for the action to matter, but not so much that you will do it once and never return.

Try that version for one week.

Then ask:

• Did I do it?
• What made it easier?
• What made it harder?
• Should I turn the discomfort one notch up, one notch down, or leave it where it is?

That is how we build capacity.

Not by proving how much discomfort we can survive once, but by slowly expanding what we can return to.

Making sense of it

Discomfort is not proof that something is working.

Sometimes it helps us grow.

Sometimes it is unnecessary.

Sometimes it is a warning to stop.

Learning to tell the difference is the real skill.

So, what is one useful discomfort you are avoiding right now?

And what would happen if you turned the dial down just enough to begin?

The right level of discomfort is not the most you can survive.

It is the amount you can return to consistently.