Putting Discomfort into Practice

A Lesson Plan for Getting Messy, Making Mistakes, and Learning New Things

Thank you for reading And Also, a weekly newsletter featuring personal stories and lesson plans to help you navigate life ✨!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

“It’s not enough to simply accept minimal discomfort when it arises. Surprisingly, we’re better off actively seeking out discomfort.” - Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

As I write this, my younger cousin is driving up from LA to move to Portland, mirroring a trip I also took just a little over six years ago. As it was for me, it’s a big change for him — a wonderful, scary, perfect change; something that is both exhilarating and heartrending, especially when done on your own.

To put it mildly, it’s uncomfortable. But like me, it’s a change he knows he needs to make, and he’s leaning into the discomfort of it to find out who he is on the other side. To say I’m proud of him is an understatement. And it’s a reminder of what this week’s lesson plan is all about: Putting deliberate discomfort into practice. 

You don’t have to move to a new state (unless you want to!) or start swimming laps at your local community center (as I wrote about last week), but you can start intentionally practicing getting out of your comfort zone. You can seek out opportunities to make mistakes in service of actually learning and growing.

As I shared last week, that’s exactly what I’m intending to do.

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On Deliberate Discomfort

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And, as if right on cue, my horoscope this week said: “Get curious about the modalities outside of your routine comfort zone, and embrace your mistakes as wise teachers. The learning curve is where you’ll find adventure.”

Heard, Universe.

To me, this isn’t just about taking on a challenge for the sake of this newsletter or as a one-off test of my tenacity; more regularly seeking out and embracing discomfort is the foundation upon which I want to continue building my life.

If I want to always be learning and growing — and I very much do — then I need to be able to face discomfort and accept making mistakes in bigger ways than I ever have before. I know that building reps at this will help me achieve anything I want to do!

“Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill—an especially important form of determination. It takes three kinds of courage: to abandon your tried-and-true methods, to put yourself in the ring before you feel ready, and to make more mistakes than others make attempts. The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort.” - Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

In the past, I’ve avoided the discomfort of actual change by “procrasti-learning” – reading books and taking classes and watching experts online without taking action (or without taking consistent action).

By actually creating a plan for myself — and for yourself! — this week, I intend to actually put discomfort into practice; this time expecting that I’ll make more than a few mistakes along the way.

As always, we have to start with where we are. I know, I know - duh. But articulating where you are now is the only way to know how far you’ve progressed in the future.

I was inspired by Eva Keffenheim’s recent newsletter about keeping a learning journal as a way of accelerating your growth. I love this idea 1) as an excuse to buy a new notebook, and 2) as a way to record progress on the important “projects” within our lives. 

Here’s Eva’s tips for keeping a learning journal:

• Be Consistent

• Reflect on the Process

• Set Goals and Track Progress

• Identify Patterns

• Embrace Honesty

And here’s a few questions to get you started — with a few of my own answers thrown in:

What has been your experience with discomfort? Whether willingly or not, where have you experienced discomfort in your life?

When I journaled on this, I thought about that one time I jumped out of an airplane in New Zealand, the moment I asked my then-husband for a divorce, when I started taking dance classes again as an adult, recently writing a sex scene for my novel and sharing it with my writers group, and launching this very Substack! :) Your experiences will likely be just as varied in timeframe and significance.

When do you wish you’d been more comfortable being uncomfortable?

Why do you want to practice deliberate discomfort? What are you hoping to learn or gain from this experience?

Is there something you’ve been interested in learning about or pursuing recently, but you’re afraid you’ll be bad at it or look silly or you’re too old (insert any other excuse that makes you feel too uncomfortable to push forward here)?

Oh, I could list so many things here! There are things I’m actively working on right now like cooking more, writing a book, and practicing sobriety — as well as things I want to try in the future like cold plunging and doing stand up comedy. (Though even writing that last one makes me want to throw up.)

What’s one thing I can pursue to practice deliberate discomfort; to get messy and make mistakes: in the next week? The next month? The next six months? The next year?

And which one will I start with?

Pick one place where you will practice deliberate discomfort — at least over the next week — using this lesson plan as your guide. I’m choosing to continue showing up as a novice cook (more on that journey in a future newsletter), so I’m right there with you.

Now, let’s get into the good stuff!

No procrasti-learning for us! 

Following is an intentional sequence of activities that will invite you to engage in exploring and applying the idea of getting deliberately uncomfortable. Yes, that’s teacher-speak for let’s get to work!

“Start thinking about yourself as a lifetime student at a large university. Your curriculum is your total relationship with the world you live in, from the moment you’re born to the moment you die. Each experience is a valuable lesson to be learned.” - Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Ideally, you’ll do each of the activities listed below (I will be!), but even just one of the exercises will be helpful in pushing you toward making more mistakes in pursuit of your own growth.

• Create a “practice plan” for yourself. Use the plan to determine:

  • How will I practice deliberate discomfort with the activity I’ve chosen? How will I progress that discomfort over time as I get more and more comfortable with the beginning stages?

  • How much time can I allocate to this practice every day or week?

  • Where will it fit into my schedule? Can I add it to my calendar now?

  • Who can I lean on for support?

  • What tests or assessments can I use to assess my progress?

  • What is my end goal, and how will I know I’ve reached it?

• Write a story about your future self — the you who is doing whatever feels uncomfortable to you right now! How is future you getting through the more difficult moments; the messy mistakes and the cringy missteps? What are you thinking, feeling, and doing to continue pushing yourself forward? Feel free to write in the first or the third person, and make the story as short or as long as you want. Have fun with it!

• Pay attention to your mindset as you work through the discomfort. Without judgment, jot down the thoughts and stories that come up as you practice your uncomfortable thing. Look at them immediately after your practice session, and ask yourself:

  • Is this thought true?

  • Can I absolutely know that it's true?

  • How do I react or feel when I believe that thought?

  • Who would I be without the thought?

  • Thanks to Byron Katie’s work for these four questions!

“You don’t need to get comfortable before you can practice your skills. Your comfort grows as you practice your skills.” - Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

Just kidding — there’s no tests here; just some questions to help you reflect on and evaluate your progress along the way.

“All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way.” - Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Ask yourself:

• What have I learned about myself that I didn’t know before? (Maybe it’s your tenacity or maybe it’s your tendency to make things really hard on yourself when you could go easy. Be gentle, but be honest.) How could you use this self-knowledge in better service to yourself in the future?

• What were some of the unexpected or unintended outcomes of this challenge? What lessons do I want to take with me into future experiences of discomfort?

• What am I proud of? (Take as long as you want, and list every way you’ve blown your own damn mind.)

Books

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Clearly, Adam’s book was a huge inspiration to me on this topic! The first chapter of his latest book, in particular, offers so much insight into the ways that we learn and grow, and how embracing discomfort and being willing to make mistakes is a better predictor of potential and true learning than trying to get everything right!

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

Susan Jeffers’ book is also hugely inspirational, and puts a classic-self-help-empowering spin on doing the things we’re most afraid of doing. I really like the mindset shifts that Susan proposes and guides readers through throughout the book.

Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang

This book is an easy read, and such a great reminder of the magic that happens when we’re willing to get uncomfortable and risk rejection.

I haven’t read these yet, but they’re on my required reading list for this topic too:

• Grit by Angela Duckworth

• The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

Videos

• The gift and power of emotional courage - TED Talk, Susan David

• Grit: The power of passion and perseverance - TED Talk, Angela Duckworth

• The Discomfort Zone - Talks at Google, Farrah Storr

Self-Care

Getting uncomfy, while a worthwhile exercise, could also throw your nervous system out of whack depending on the activity you choose and just how far outside of your comfort zone you’re going. Even those things that can’t actually harm us sometimes feel like they will in our body. And causing harm to yourself — whether real or imagined — is not the goal!

As Adam Bornstein writes in his new book, You Can’t Screw This Up: “. . . discomfort and complexity are not the same things. And there’s nothing that says you should be uncomfortable all the time. As you’ll learn, expanding your comfort zone—not abandoning it—is the secret to creating new behaviors that last.”

While I’m not a nervous system expert, following are a few activities and resources that support my own nervous system regulation:

• Movement: Go for walk outside, do jumping jacks, or turn on some music and dance at your desk.

• Breathwork: This article outlines a few beginner breathwork techniques, and organizations like Black Girls Breathing and Yoga With Adriene’s 30-Day Breath series are a great resource for facilitated breathwork sessions, too.

• EFT Tapping: EFT tapping is a technique that relieves negative emotions and anxiety by stimulating acupressure points — and The Tapping Solution, Gala Darling, Haley Hoffman Smith are my go-to tapping experts. Brad Yates has a lot of free tapping videos on YouTube that you can follow along with, too!

If you’re able, I also highly recommend getting professional support to navigate the ups and downs of learning something new and pursuing big changes. 💛

“Comfort in learning is a paradox. You can’t become truly comfortable with a skill until you’ve practiced it enough to master it. But practicing it before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it. Accelerating learning requires a second form of courage: being brave enough to use your knowledge as you acquire it.” - Adam Grant, Hidden Potential

Whatever you choose to do and however you choose to practice deliberate discomfort, I hope you have fun with it! Let it be messy, let there be mistakes, and let the magic of discomfort help you discover something new about yourself.

Now, here’s your extra credit assignment: Share with me in the comments! 

• How are you practicing deliberate discomfort? 

• What’s something that stood out in your learning journal? 

• What are you excited to try next? 

I can’t wait to hear from you!

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