EP 298 – Two types of discomfort

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Hello and welcome to the Get a Six Figure Job You Love podcast. This is a little different for me. I’m recording from my car. And I’m here waiting to go into work because I’m really early. So the podcast today was inspired by a recent post I did and a previous client I had and it’s called Two Types of Discomfort. And the reason I’m recording this one is because I post a lot of content as you might know.  If you follow me on LinkedIn or you’re on my email list, I  have a uh natural gift for just posting a lot of words.  And I try to make them really impactful and really meaningful and  really intentional. But  the way that I  kind of gather data is I post a lot  and I see what resonates. And so this two types of discomfort idea kind of rose to the very top of the… top posts with the most impressions. So it reminded me  of my previous client. I also had some comments and some people reaching out to me saying that they really resonated with this.  And the premise is, that there, there’s always going to be  your choice of discomfort because there’s always going to be some kind of discomfort in life in order to move forward. So nobody ever moved forward in life  by remaining comfortable all the time, right? So  the extreme,  the extreme for this would be  You get up, you sit on the couch, you watch TV and you eat Cheez-Its or cake or  you just sit, you just,  you’re in comfort all the time, right?  You never do anything uncomfortable. And then you can imagine, okay, what kind of life is that gonna give me in the end? Like,  I never do anything I don’t wanna do. I never do anything that puts me  out of my comfort zone. I just remain in comfort all the time. Just imagine what kind of life that’s gonna give you. Now that is not most of us.  I don’t think it’s probably anybody listening to this podcast. but it kind of puts things into perspective, right?  And then you’ve got the people who are on the other side, they’re like extreme,  and they’re getting up at five in the morning every morning, they’re working out, they’re  putting themselves on stages, they’re just like, what is the next most uncomfortable thing that we can do, right?  And they are gonna move ahead really fast, and they’re probably the people that you see  who are really successful in the world.  Now,  most of us are in the middle. Right? We do some uncomfortable things  and some comfortable things.  And  the work that I’ve been doing is just getting myself to do more uncomfortable things more often. So working out more often, lifting heavier more often.  And by doing that, I realized that, you know,  I can overcome my brain that doesn’t want to do it.  And every time I overcome my brain  that doesn’t want to do it, it gets easier and I even start to enjoy it.  And…  These days in my workouts now it’s been three,  probably three years that I’ve been lifting weights consistently.  I still don’t want to do it, but when I get down there to my basement and I start lifting, it’s familiar. It feels familiar and it starts to feel good, right? And my body starts to settle in and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what this is about.  And it starts to enjoy the push, enjoy the hard.  And it never used to be like that in the beginning and there was a lot of stopping and starting and stuff, but I’ve gotten to a rhythm where it’s like, yeah, this is comfortable. And I almost need to  break up the routine a little bit. So like go to a workout class that’s maybe even a little tougher than that, right?  Because even that has kind of gotten to a comfortable routine, even though it’s still challenging,  it’s not as challenging as it was.  So  there we go. We’ve got like,  if you’re super comfortable all the time,  you can see that you’re not going to have a life that’s going to be very meaningful or impactful, right? If you’re super uncomfortable all the time, you can… like  you can raise a head and achieve a lot more in your life. But that’s very challenging to do and it takes time to build up for a lot of people, for me for sure.  And it’s something that is always gonna be something in the forefront of my mind that I’m gonna be working towards, right? Like that is just a goal that I have, that  I have made for myself,  that I want to try to be uncomfortable so that I can create more with my life. Because I’ve seen how that works, right? I post something that’s really uncomfortable to post or  I do a workout that’s really uncomfortable to do or I go say something to somebody that’s really uncomfortable to say but it was my truth or I ask a question that I thought I was gonna be really embarrassed to ask and then  I see that the result wasn’t so bad  or you know all these little things they don’t have to be like one thing that’s uncomfortable for me might be easy for you right it’s  it’s really depending on what is it that you are resisting or avoiding and you have to go do that thing because that is what your growth is right  so  This  idea of two types of discomfort  is  the first type of discomfort is the discomfort that you feel from sitting on the couch all day  eating Cheez-Its or Cheez-Ees  and watching Netflix. And  that is uncomfortable because  you probably don’t feel very good about yourself, right? You probably feel lethargic. You probably feel like you haven’t done anything that day. You probably feel like… If you have any kind of ambition at all, which most humans do,  you probably feel like  you should be doing something, right?  Or you should be doing something towards your goals. And we’ve all had those days, right? We don’t have them every day, but I’m sure you can relate. You’ve had a day where you  have not done very much, right? Or you feel like you said you were gonna work out and then you did it then you feel  that like, oh, I should have worked out. Like I would feel so much better now if I had or,  you know. You feel the discomfort of not having done the thing  versus the discomfort of having done the thing.  So with my client, this is the example that I used originally and this was a big breakthrough for her and basically got her moving into getting the job for 150K during the pandemic that she got.  So  she was like, I don’t wanna go for interviews. I’m actually really relieved when they call me and I’m rejected  or they call me and I don’t like she’s pre rejected and she doesn’t have to go. She was like, I really…  I hate to admit it, but I’m actually really happy when that happens.  And uh I said to her, well, what happens if you actually have to go to the interview? What thoughts, what feelings come up? Like, why don’t you want to go? And she goes, well, she’s like, and then that’s when the truth comes out. It’s like, well, if I go, not, like, I don’t really think I have the experience that they’re looking for. I don’t really think I have the right answers.  Like, basically, I’m afraid to go and fail and look like an idiot and be embarrassed and be put on the spot.  I don’t want that, right? So that is the discomfort that she was avoiding, right? But the discomfort that she was taking instead without really knowing it was the discomfort of not moving forward, right? Not actually putting herself in a position where she could get a job, get the maybe that she wanted or get the yes that she wanted, right? Like she wasn’t even putting herself in a position to get that. So that’s the discomfort. It’s like, it’s like there’s always going to be one of the two because we’re humans, right? So very few humans or no human that I know is content with just stagnating all the time doing nothing. Like, and that might mean like, it doesn’t mean you have to advance to want to be a manager or a VP or whatever. It can mean you just want to advance in your role and just get better at one particular thing, right? Like we are wired to want to improve and get better and grow. Like that’s why we have the society, the buildings, the roads, like iPhones, everywhere you look, somebody is working to improve something, right? We’re  AI, like everything is working to get better, to get faster, to get stronger. And I’m not saying that has to be you in every area of your life, not at all,  but it’s the way humans are wired. We are wired to do that. So when we’re not doing that  and we have a desire in an area of our life to do that,  we feel uncomfortable.  And that is because we are designed to grow and evolve. So the challenge is overcoming  our own kind of, for lack of a better word, laziness.  And that laziness is kind of built in. It’s like a part of us. It’s like, oh it’s like,  some people call it the lizard brain or the,  the lizard brain is the part of your brain that wants the gratification now and doesn’t care about the later.  And then your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that, you know, can pre-plan for later  and can make plans and follow them and, you know. do the things you need to do to get to a goal in the future, right? Like um a cat or a dog doesn’t have that ability. They just know what’s happening now. Like, I getting food now? Am I going for a walk now? Like, they don’t know anything about the future. They don’t care about tomorrow, right? But us as humans, we get to care about tomorrow and the next day. And even 10 years from now, we get to decide, hey, I want to do, I want this to be where I am in 10 years.  Like people can set a 10 year goal and…  And that can be something that you work towards every day and really enjoy, right?  And  when we’re not working towards our goal, if it’s small goal or a big goal or whatever, when we don’t do the things we know we could to work towards our goal,  we feel discomfort. That is just how it is. And you know what I’m talking about, right? You know what I’m talking about if you’re listening here.  You know that you feel discomfort when you know you could have done something more  towards your goal and you didn’t.  Now, sometimes it’s because  you made an excuse in the moment and  you wish you hadn’t made that excuse, or sometimes you’ve been continuously making that excuse.  And there’s a reason why, like there’s a reason why. And for my client, she was thinking,  like, I don’t want to feel that feeling of being embarrassed, not having an answer,  of failing and being told I’m not going to get the job anyway. Like  her brain was like, I would rather just not have that experience  and then just not go at all. Right.  And that can also be referred to failing ahead of time. right, because she didn’t even give herself a chance to actually put herself in the arena where that could actually happen. She didn’t put herself in the game to play, right?  And so when we don’t put ourselves in the game to play and  we don’t get a chance to win, we don’t give ourselves a chance to win, and then we feel that discomfort.  And what I find for most people is it’s normally just delaying  because you eventually will, you will have to, you’ll want to.  And  some people they will just… you know, I call it like disguising quitting for changing directions, right? Like a lot of people will say, oh, I’m gonna,  I want to get this job or I want to get this type of job at this pay and then they can’t, they don’t do it right away. And then they’re like, well, I guess it didn’t work out. I might as well go back to school, right?  And I call that kind of avoidance, right? Because school is still more comfortable for them than continuing to figure out what’s going on in their interviewing or why they’re not progressing in the process, right? That’s more uncomfortable to look at, to figure out, to discover, to maybe hire a coach to get your to get some help with that. That’s more uncomfortable than it is to say, I’ll just go back to school. Because I find that people who want to go back to school, they’re very good students. They know school, they know how to study, they know how to get good grades on tests, right? But they don’t know how to nail an interview. And that’s the part they’re avoiding, right? So for me, I was the total opposite. I got into school because I had to go to college because my dad was like, you know, you have to go to school or you’re going to move out. So I decided, okay, fine, I’ll go to school.  And then as soon as I could, I got a job and I quit school.  And I was like, that’s it. I don’t need to go to school ever again.  And because I realized I’m like, hey, I can make money and I don’t even need this education. Like I don’t even need this particular education that I’m going to school for to have a job that pays me well. So I  was very motivated by networking, talking to more people, helping more people.  And that was more comfortable for me than going to school because school was honestly painful for me.  But for a lot of people that I  coach or that I meet or even you listening, school might be very comfortable for you. You might be like, no, I love it. I love learning. I love the dopamine it gives me.  I love the satisfaction of studying for a test and getting a good mark. I love the certificate I get, right?  That is more comfortable.  And also  your brain thinks, you know, I can do that. I can achieve that. That’s easier for me  than, you know, learning how to nail an interview,  learning how to masterfully do an interview where you beat out other people. that is harder  for a lot of people, right? And for me, that was the easier part. I was just like, no, give me interviews. Give me as many interviews as we can do.  I don’t want to go to school ever again. Just let me master this, right?  And I think that’s why I got really good at that and I really enjoyed it. And  now whenever I need a job, I know I can just go out and get one because I know that doesn’t matter if other people have more experience than me.  And those are my beliefs, right?  And those beliefs were built based on my previous experience and your beliefs are built based on your  previous experience. But if your beliefs don’t serve you,  you can change them. And that’s what I teach.  That’s what I do.  So I am hosting a free coaching call to kind of help you if you’re in one of these types of discomfort right now, which you probably are.  If you have a goal right now or you have an outcome that you’re trying to get,  you are probably in one of these types of discomforts.  You either  want to  You want to move yourself forward and get out of your comfort zone more, and maybe you are hesitating or don’t know how to do that, or you haven’t been able to do that like my client,  or you are, um you’re in the discomfort of not doing very much at all.  You know you need to do more, you know you need to figure out  how to get yourself out of your comfort zone, or you’re not doing that.  So if you’d like some help with that,  I’m hosting a free coaching call. The link will be in the show notes and it’s going to be a call. It’s like a group call where you can come and you can raise your hand and I can help you with your particular challenge or problem that you’re facing right now. And I’ll show you the tool I use. It’s called the model and we’ll break down your challenge and we’ll come up with a way for you to move forward specifically. And if you don’t want to raise your hand, you don’t have to, you can sit back and observe and either way it’s a really great time. It’s going to be very beneficial for everybody who attends. I always get a lot of feedback on these calls and I look forward to seeing you there.  Thanks very much for listening and I will talk to you next week. Hopefully the quality of the sound was good  and yeah, I will talk to you next week.

 


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