Mindset Monday - Uncomfortable comfortable

This is episode 134 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, Vitaldi and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

We are going to talk about comfortable, uncomfortable.

Actually, it should be the reverse. It's uncomfortable comfortable. The reason it's uncomfortable, comfortable.

Can we say that five times? Uncomfortable, comfortable, not so easy. That is what we tend to do. So today we're going to talk about this because it's kind of a hidden thing. And if we really want our best growth and we really want to get to the places we want to go in our health and our businesses, in our sports and our families, if we really want to get to where we want to go, we have to get into that uncomfortable zone. And we all know this. We know this to grow, right? So what actually happens, I'm going to give you a few examples here because of how our brain works for us. So our brain is trying to keep us alive. That's our main purpose, keep us breathing, walking, moving. But it will always go to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay comfortable.

And even if we know this and.

We go to get uncomfortable, we tend.

Still to stay in the realms that.

We'Re kind of still comfortable. So I'll let you know what I'm talking about. I looked at this in a few ways. We know if we get uncomfortable, we learn, we grow. We also expand our awareness in order to discover new things. Remember, if you never knew how to read and then all of a sudden you know how to read, it opens up so much more to your world because you've discovered a new thing. And that's how we grow and expand.

To more and more.

So we tend, though, to stay comfortable.

Even when we've sought to get uncomfortable.

I'm going to give you an example of this. For years, and I've done this on probably thousands of people by now, I.

Would use a single leg squat as an assessment test. And in using this test, everybody doing it would be uncomfortable. Everyone would be, even the best athletes in the world would be uncomfortable having to do a single leg squat. You can imagine how challenging that would be for almost all humans. So when I would have an athlete or a private client or someone who's injured, go up onto a box, they have to balance and they're on that box and then they go into a single leg squat and they might go kind of a low depth. And I've instructed them, no, you have.

To go to this particular depth.

And that's really challenging, really uncomfortable, and they do it.

And what I've discovered over years of.

Doing this, over two decades of doing this, and is that almost every single person who does that test starts on the strong side. It would be a rare, rare occasion that somebody would start on the weak side. So despite knowing, and I would instruct them ahead of time, I'd demonstrate for.

Them ahead of time, I'd walk them through it.

When they do it, despite knowing that we're probably looking for certain weaknesses and strengths, they would always start on the strong side and not even realize they were doing it. Even if we spoke earlier about working hard on increasing the strength on the weak side or getting better at a certain thing, even if we'd had conversations around it, they would still go into.

That movement and typically start on their strong side.

This is an example of being in an uncomfortable environment, challenging yourself in that discomfort, and then still staying more comfortable, automatically below our radar in this hidden fashion. So I'm going to give you some more examples of this.

One example, for me personally, I realized this quite some time ago, is that.

I don't want to get up in.

The morning and work out.

Everybody thinks that I might want to or my husband might want to. It's just what we do. And we love doing it. We feel good about it every time. And the answer is absolutely not. We do not feel like getting up in the morning and pushing really hard in a workout that almost never exists. So I get really uncomfortable to step into that workout every day. However, it's still a comfort zone. Just the working out itself is an area that I'm more comfortable getting uncomfortable. So that would be a workout example. Another example I took a look at was in sport. I see this in sport all the time. And having worked in different national sport bodies, high performance sport centers, what happens is there's a culture of getting uncomfortable because everybody knows they need to work hard to get to that next level or make it to the championships or whatever it is. So there's a culture of working hard. That's the uncomfortable. But the comfortable is a culture that also says, know your role, so stay in your zone, stick with your systems. And that keeps us within this really narrow parameter of staying within the same things all the time to specialize. The same thing happens in research, in research, in a lab. What we like to do is get uncomfortable in exploring and understanding something new that we may not know. But then we stay comfortable by getting more and more specialized, specialized, specialized and not looking at outside things and it narrows down what the real opportunities are. And this is something I explored in a book called Range, which I highly recommend. It's by David Epstein, if anyone wants to read it. The book is Range. And another example would be, let's say you are at home and it's with your family and you want to teach your kids something at home that's uncomfortable. To teach somebody else something quite often or to teach them something that the other person doesn't know. But we stay comfortable by teaching them something we already know. So there's always this uncomfortable, comfortable. It's usually hidden because our brain wants to stay within that realm of safety. And if we're pushing or stretching our boundaries in any form, then we want to pull back just a bit and stay within that boundary. And what I'm challenging you to do is just take a look at where that might be happening. Not necessarily stretch every boundary that you have in your realm, within your work or your family or your workouts or your training or any of those things. I'm not asking you to stretch every boundary that would probably be foolish in your life and cause too much extra, too much stress. But what I am challenging you to do is take that higher position and take a look in the main categories of your life. Whether it's your sport and training, whether it's your business, whether it's your family life, your relationships. Take a look at those main categories and see where am I picking the most comfortable area to get uncomfortable? Because that's what we tend to do. And if you're doing that in a.

Really important area of your life, what.

I would suggest is that there's probably a way that you can look at it a little differently that might add to your growth, add to your expansion. Another example I'd like to give is my business.

My business. Years ago when I, I started the.

Gym in Winnipeg, I ran the gym, I moved the gym and ran the gym in London. But I had systems that I created that really worked. And the whole time in running a business, it was really, really freaking uncomfortable. There was always challenges in running a business, so I was always uncomfortable. But I didn't take that top end look at my systems in order to stay see what really could be changed or different. And that's how I stayed comfortable in an uncomfortable environment. And that's what you're looking for. Where are you staying comfortable in an uncomfortable environment? Where might you need to shift subtly? Like starting on the weaker leg in that single leg squat example. Where might you need to shift subtly that could cause greater growth without that much of a difference. A last example I'd like to give you is in our relationships and how we communicate with others. And these relationships could be with those you work with, they could be those you live with, loved ones, partners, whoever it is. But in our relationships, there are those zones where we might have an uncomfortable conversation, but we often end up staying comfortable by not actually tackling or problem solving the real issue or, or an underlying issue that neither party really wants to deal with. And that would be another example of being uncomfortable, but keeping it at a level of comfort that just causes the problem to still exist or causes the problem to perpetuate over time. So take that third, that third eye look, that higher level view, that top perspective of trying to see where you you're in an uncomfortable environment, but you're still kind of holding in your own comfort zone. Maybe you need to work the weak side a little more in your training. Maybe you need to have the uncomfortable conversation and take it to another level with a business partner. Maybe there's something at home with the family that might feel uncomfortable, but you could take it to an area that would really make a big difference to your family connection. So take a look for that. Where's the area in an uncomfortable part of your life that you're kind of staying comfortable that would really make a difference for you just to shift subtly and make that expansion for your life.

Your relationships, your work, whatever it happens to be. I hope this serves you today on your mindset. Monday Live big.

Play big. Keep reaching and stretching your limits.

Go for it. Have an incredible week. So much love to you all. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To join, email us at infompowerconditioning.com with subject line team and that's info powerconditioning.com we can't wait for you to be on the team.