Can You Transform Without Getting Uncomfortable?

Leading presenter, author and educator in the areas of high-performance, cocky-management, personal transformation and more Read full profile

Here's one of my theories on success:

Hypothesis: At that place is a positive correlation between how uncomfortable an individual is prepared to get and their likelihood of success – irrespective of the field of endeavour.

I came to this conclusion after decades of incidental and intentional research, exploration and observation.

The Genesis of My Company

I remember when I signed a commercial lease for the outset fourth dimension to secure a edifice and open my first training heart twenty years ago. Yep, I'm that old. I was twenty-vi. I had no business experience, no assets (to speak of), owned no property and had zero experience every bit an employer. I put every cent I had into the business set-up and was left with less than a hundred dollars in the banking concern. I signed a lease committing me to a rent of six hundred dollars per week for the next three years. To me at that time, thirty chiliad dollars a year was near incomprehensible. I felt physically ill as I signed the papers. It may equally well have been six meg dollars a week – so nervous and stressed was I. To say I was uncomfortable is a massive understatement. I didn't sleep properly for weeks. If there was another manner, I would accept chosen it. There wasn't, so I got uncomfortable.

It worked out okay.

Speaking

I remember my get-go professional speaking gig. I was terrible. And terrified. Some of yous have heard the story only the curt version is that I sweated so much before my gig (yep before) that I had to dry my shirt with a hand dryer in a public bath earlier I could walk into the room. Classy, I know. I feel distressing for my audience (and the people who witnessed the shirt-drying fiasco) only I could never have delivered my thousandth presentation (which I did long ago) without doing that horrible initial 1.

University

I also remember my first day of academy as a thirty-six year-old who had never used a estimator, never sat in a lecture theatre and who hadn't studied formally for xviii years. To be honest, I never actually studied formally – even at schoolhouse. I did more study in my offset week of college than I did in 13 years of master and secondary schools combined. There I sabbatum in an auditorium full of tech-savvy, reckoner-literate, fresh-out-of-school, xviii year-olds who had never heard of blackness and white TV, Jackson Browne or the Eagles. Shameful. In my starting time grade I had to enquire the lecturer what a mouse, a hard-drive, a floppy disk (not what I pictured) and cursor were. He thought I was kidding. For two months I typed at the devastating speed of v words per infinitesimal. Unless they had more than than two syllables – then I dropped dorsum to 4 words. In the first calendar week I actually paid a kid to give me remedial figurer lessons between classes. She thought it was hilarious. And profitable. For the entire kickoff semester I felt similar a full fraud who should have been somewhere (anywhere) else. Socially, technically, academically and emotionally I was uncomfortable every day for almost of the outset yr of my degree. Three years after I was a academy lecturer. With a published book – typed past me! (Slightly faster than v words per infinitesimal too.)

Existence Full Figured. Thick Set. Stocky. Big-Boned… er… Fat

Then there was my first ever run every bit an obese teenager. I was in yr eight, weighed xc kilos (198lbs) and was more suited to sitting or shuffling than I was to running. As much equally it (and the subsequent hundred runs) hurt, I knew that nothing could be equally painful equally the social and emotional rejection that accompanied existence a fat kid. Then running it was. Discomfort it was. 5 months after my first (painfully tiresome) jog and 30 kilos (66lbs) lighter, I was an endorphin junkie; fond to the high that running gave me.

Where at that place's discomfort, there's growth. Where there are barriers, there are lessons. And where at that place is adversity, there is forcefulness to exist found and potential to be explored.

Building a Blog

Being a person who writes for an audience can be both gratifying and terrifying. Nobody likes criticism but I get it every day. Not some days, every day. Nigh bloggers with a large readership exercise. Or maybe information technology's simply me. Have enough readers and someone will hate yous or detest what (or how) y'all write; it'southward unavoidable. While writing for a high-traffic interactive blog similar this one can be a stimulating, challenging, heady and rewarding experience, it tin can also be freakin' uncomfortable. Putting your thoughts, ideas and beliefs out there opens you upward for all kinds of.. er… feedback. The truth is that, in order to create one of the best personal development resources in the globe (one of my goals), I need to become uncomfortable often. That discomfort might come in the form of less-than-desirable feedback from a reader. It might come in the form of physical pain (back and neck mostly for me) which comes with too many hours spent at a keyboard. Or, it might but exist the reality of having to sacrifice certain things (for a period of time) in order to build and maintain the kind of resource that'southward representative of my philosophy and consistent with my standards. Is it all worth information technology? Absolutely. Is it easy? Nope. It is uncomfortable? Often. Do I know why nearly bloggers throw in the towel before their site is a twelvemonth old? Yeah – because creating a high-quality site (and getting traffic to that site) is more piece of work and effort than most people would ever imagine.

My Research Middle

Working on a gym floor for decades has been the perfect 'laboratory' for me to test the higher up hypothesis. You lot don't need to be a genius to realise that people who are committed to being 'comfy' (versus productive) in the gym are as well the ones who are committed to staying where they are (consciously or not) – metaphorically speaking. I've ever been amused past people who pay for a membership and turn up at the gym regularly, only to go-through-the-motions month after month. It is their lack of willingness to get uncomfortable (not their genetics, age or physical potential) which stands between them and their best body. Or, at the very least, a better body. Why practise you lot think Australians spend over two million dollars every day on weight-loss pills, powders and potions when they could only eat less and motility more than to go the job done? Because they desire the results without the discomfort; that's why. After all, progressive exercise programs and controlled calorie intakes own't much fun – then pills it will be. For some.

Major Discomfort

And and so there are those people who volition deal with a level of discomfort that the rest of us wouldn't fifty-fifty want to consider. Aaron Ralston is an hazard dude who famously cut off his own right arm to free himself later a tragic hiking accident. Here's a snapshot of his story (as shared on msnbc.com):

Ralston's gripping story captured the world'due south imagination back in April 2003. Known for beingness a daredevil, Ralston, now 32, went mountain-climbing in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. And not only did he travel solo – he neglected to tell anyone virtually his trip.

Ralston roughshod into a crevice, dislodging an 800-pound bedrock in the process, and the slab pinned him against a canyon wall. After five days trying to lift and break the bedrock, he came to an disturbing determination: He had to cut off the lower office of his lifeless right arm. Ralston managed to snap the basic of his arm against the rock, and then used the deadening blade of a multi-utilise tool to cut through the tissue around his broken arm. He used pliers to sever the tendons and finally extricated himself.

Ralston then rappelled downwardly a 65-foot wall. He had begun an 8-mile (13 km) hike back to his vehicle when a vacationing family met upward with him on the trail and called for help. After months of rehabilitation, Ralston returned to an agile lifestyle and even resumed climbing. 2 years subsequently his accident, he climbed 14,000-human foot peaks in his native Colorado with the aid of a prosthetic right hand.

Simply…

At present, I know what you're thinking: "but Craig, he was in a life or death state of affairs". I agree, the circumstances were extreme but it's my belief that the vast majority of people finding themselves in a similar situation would only accept perished out in that location. The prospect of cut off any limb (specially one attached to our own body!) is simply something that would exist likewise much for most people to deal with.

Or perhaps I'yard wrong?

In that moment, that place and that situation, success (living) for Aaron meant getting very (very) uncomfortable. And not only did he choose to deal with the physical discomfort (discomfort doesn't really seem acceptable does information technology?), merely tin you even brainstorm to imagine the psychological and emotional discomfort that would accompany such a determination and action? It's amazing what we tin tolerate (how uncomfortable we can become) and how much power, force and power we can tap into when we believe we have no other option.

When we take abroad the safety cyberspace (the 1 we always give ourselves) information technology's amazing what we can do.

While at that place are many variables which play a office in the transformational procedure (vision, planning, preparation, goal-setting, talent, knowledge, support, etc.), information technology'south my experience that the person with every ingredient except a willingness to get uncomfortable, is the person who will fail. Time later time. Once we acknowledge (and accept) that lasting transformation can only occur when we face up our fears and cull to get uncomfortable on a regular basis, and then nosotros begin to move from cocky-limitation to self-empowerment.

So, what is it you're afterwards – comfort or transformation?

Image: mccheek

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/can-you-transform-without-getting-uncomfortable.html

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