Episode 68: Edge Hard

Hey, today we're going to hit this one hard. We're talking about why doing hard things rewires your brain. This isn't hustle culture. This isn't punishment. This isn't— this is all about the neuroscience of it. And by the end of the episode, you're going to understand why avoiding discomfort Is slowly shrinking your confidence and how intentionally choosing hard things builds identity. It also builds resilience and real strength. And then I'm going to give you 3 practical ways to apply this immediately. And at the end, I'll tell you why coaching accelerates this process. But let's start talking about you. And this is for me as well. But you felt it before, that hesitation before a really hard conversation, the resistance before you work out, the internal negotiation before you hit send on a really uncomfortable email. And what's happening is your brain is whispering, not today, not right now. And by the way, that voice, it's not weakness. I'm gonna say that again. That voice is not weakness. It's biology. You see, your brain is wired for efficiency and safety. The amygdala, that whole thing about fight or flight, it's actually scanning for threat. And then another part of your brain, It's going to be lighting up when, when the effort feels uncomfortable. Dopamine. We've talked about dopamine on here a lot, but dopamine spikes for quick wins and easy rewards. Your nervous system prefers predictability because when we start talking about unpredictability, historically that has meant danger. And so we avoid it. And when something is hard, whether it's socially or physically, maybe even emotionally, your brain is going to flag that as a potential threat. But you see, here's the twist. The same system that tries to protect you is also plastic. Now I'm gonna break out of this just for a second. I'm— and I'm gonna talk about doing hard things. A lot of you know that I'm former military. A lot of you know that I've been an endurance athlete. A lot of you know that I've done things like hunting, hunting with traditional archery equipment, or going out on survival treks with just what was in a small backpack. Those are hard things. And while at the time Maybe I was doing a little bit of a bravado. Maybe I was doing a little bit of adventure. What I now realize is going against the grain like that and going against that system that was trying to keep me out of harm and that same system that, that tries to protect. It's always malleable. It's plastic. See, neuroplasticity— I always say that wrong, but neuroplasticity, it means your brain changes based upon repeated experience. When you repeatedly avoid hard things and you stay out of— you purposely stay out of doing things that are difficult, Or strenuous, what's really happening is you're strengthening neural pathways of avoidance, and the brain becomes more efficient at giving up. Your brain becomes more efficient at quitting, saying, hey, I'm not going to do this, the road's too hard. It's really easy to build a habit of not getting up in the morning exercising or not taking that run. Or getting up and doing journaling. But when you, on a consistent basis, when you lean into discomfort and you do it on a volunteer basis, something powerful happens. This is why people who take ice baths, they're not just— it's not just about the physical aspect of it, but it's the mental aspect of doing it. Or people who do long-distance bike rides or runs, hitting the gym, people who have the hard conversations. When you keep leaning into discomfort and you're doing it, you're volunteering for it, the prefrontal cortex strengthens. That's the part of your brain that's responsible for decision-making. It's the part of your brain that's responsible for impulse control and long-term planning. Each time that you go in and you override the urge to avoid, you're literally strengthening top-down control over fear responses. I have talked about Angela Duckworth's work in the past. She's done this incredible work around grit. And in her work, she shows that grit is perseverance, and it's not personality. It's trained behavior. Carol Dweck did research on growth mindset and how it demonstrates that when we interpret struggle as development rather than deficiency, Performance actually improves. Lately, I've been listening to the Huberman Lab, and Andrew Huberman in a recent podcast was explaining that controlled exposures to stress, they actually increase resilience by calibrating your stress response system. What does that mean? When you do hard things and you do them intentionally, you expand your stress tolerance window. In the past, I've talked about the concentric circles of comfort zone, learning zone, and panic zone. And what happens is, you know, you can get really comfortable in that comfort zone. And in fact, that comfort zone can, you know, that's the place where things are copacetic. But if we step outside of that, we do intentional steps outside, what happens then is that comfort zone begins to expand. And we, we get comfortable having the hard conversations. We get comfortable with getting into the gym, doing the bike ride, doing the chores, reaching out in relationships. Hard things done intentionally expand your stress tolerance window. We're going to shift gears just for a second here, and I want to talk about dopamine just for a moment. On previous podcasts, you've heard, you've heard me talk about dopamine, and a lot of people think dopamine is about pleasure, and it's not. It's— for a long time, that's where it's been associated. It's about motivation and pursuit. When you complete something difficult, dopamine release is tied to effort plus reward. And what that does is it creates this thing that's called a reinforcement loop. When you choose easy stimulation, doom scrolling on the phone, eating junk food, procrastination, you get fast dopamine with no growth. Man, this is a major issue right now, especially with young males. Who are finding those dopamine releases in video games and pornography, in just hanging out doing nothing. And over time, your baseline motivation drops. The brain becomes less responsive to effort-based rewards. But when you complete hard tasks, especially ones that you didn't feel like doing, Dopamine releases and reinforces the effort, just the effort, not the reward. But that dopamine release, it reinforces the effort. And then here's where the magic happens. You start to associate discomfort with progress. That's why, like in the military, I mean, we look forward to the hard days. We talked about embracing the suck. Because there's a lot of effort and there's things, you know, you're doing the hard things. Every time you do something hard, your brain stores evidence. I am someone who does difficult things. People who do difficult things find that as part of their identity. And you find this in the military culture. You find it in the blue-collar world. You find it within the athletic world. You look around and you look at people who are doing hard things, and there's an identity that is set with that. You start to associate discomfort with progress. And identity is the most powerful behavioral driver we have. I'm going to say it one more time. Identity is the most powerful behavior driver that we have. So how do we apply this? Well, I'm going to give you 3 practical ways. Number 1, practice voluntary discomfort daily. It doesn't have to be extreme. It can be cold exposure, finishing a workout when you, when you want to quit, having the conversation that you've been avoiding, waking up when the alarm goes off instead of snoozing. By the way, that's a big one. If you look in the book 95 Hard, they talk about doing a workout Outside. You're supposed to do 2 workouts a day, right? It's about doing the hard things, and it's about building that habit of doing it for 95 days. And, and if you miss a day or you miss part of a day, you start all over again. And it sucks. I've been on Hard 95, and I would love to be able to say that I've completed it. I've gotten awfully close. But I've never really completed one. Practice voluntary discomfort daily. And the key word in that is do it voluntarily. When you choose discomfort, the brain interprets it differently than when discomfort is forced upon you. Voluntary stress builds confidence. Involuntary stress builds helplessness. You begin to pick up a victim mentality. All right, number 2, reframe the physiological response. When your heart rate increases before a challenge, most people are going to label that as anxiety. Now, there's some really cool research that has come out from Stanford that shows when people reinterpret stress arousal as readiness, Performance actually improves, and it improves on a significant basis. And instead of— by the way, a lot of times the way we label things, there's a lot of internalization with that. Instead of I'm nervous, say my body's preparing. The things we say out loud and the things that we say internally have a huge impact on me, on us. Language influences neural activation. The meaning that you assign changes that entire— that it changes that entire experience. So be very careful of your words. And instead of just saying this sucks, that's where we like to use words like embrace the suck. It sucks and we're going to love it. Number 3, stack wins immediately after hard things. After completing something difficult, pause, acknowledge it, let your brain encode the success. What happens here is reflection actually strengthens the parts of your brain that holds memory. Down in the hippocampus. And if you just rush past the wins, your brain doesn't register the progress. I am horrible about this. I will go through something really difficult. So getting my captain's license, that was honestly one of the hardest things I've ever done, to get my Coast Guard captain's license. That was really one of the hardest things that I've done in recent history. And what I didn't do is I didn't assign success language to it. I didn't celebrate it. And in fact, I probably should still celebrate it. I just finished up an Emergenetics certification a couple of weeks ago. I didn't celebrate it. I just kept pressing on. If you rush past wins, your brain doesn't register the progress. And I blew a couple of opportunities there. Register your progress. Doing the hard thing, completion, recognition. That loop builds resilience. I'm gonna explain that loop one more time here. Doing the hard thing, completing it, and then the recognition. That is building resilience. Now zoom out just a little bit. Men, this is for you. Men are especially— or let me rephrase that. Men especially are being conditioned toward comfort. They're being conditioned for convenience, instant gratification, endless digital dopamine, whether it's video games or what you're looking at on your phone or your laptop. But strength, real strength, is built under resilience. The brain grows where it's challenged. Muscles grow where they're strained. Character grows where you choose to not quit. It's not about becoming extreme. Don't get me wrong on this. All right? There's a ton of books out there by people who take this to extremes, and they're great books to read. But you and I are not like that every day. Some of us are. Not always me. In fact, more times than not, it's not me. But character grows where you choose to not quit. It's about becoming deliberate. When you avoid hard things, you shrink your world. When you pursue them, you actually expand it. And here is where coaching matters. I told you I'd bring this back around to coaching. I found this out firsthand, and I see it with my clients that I work with. You see, left alone, your brain will rationalize avoidance. It will justify comfort. It will negotiate against growth. As a coach, and what my coach did for me, but as a coach, a coach interrupts that loop. A coach helps you see where you're playing small. A coach provides accountability that strengthens The follow-through. And as we've talked about before, consistent follow-through is what rewires identity. You don't need to become someone else. You need to prove to yourself repeatedly that you can handle more than you think. That proof changes everything. Hey, if this resonates with you and you're ready to intentionally build resilience instead of just hoping that it appears. Over on my website, stanshercoaching.com, set up a free discovery call. Let's get on the phone or get into a Zoom call. We're going to talk for 30 minutes and we're going to talk about those hard things. And I guarantee you, your brain and your future He's gonna thank you.