Comfort is Quietly Killing Progress

Join us this week as I dive into the quiet killer of progress: comfort. I will share my understanding of three main mindset patterns to look out for when it comes to choosing comfort over progress. Let me know what you think!

Transcript

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Hey everyone, welcome back to my understanding. Appreciate you guys tuning in and listen for another one. Love getting to do these, so always happy to hear you guys' feedback and get to interact with you guys. So thank you so much for uh coming back in or coming back, I guess. Um today we've got a fun episode, so I'm I'm excited to kind of talk about this one. Uh a lot of what I feel like I kind of go over is you know gym things where it's like it's related to okay, exercise types, you know, things that are related to like your health and fitness. Uh, and today I I feel like I wanted to kind of steer it a little bit of a different direction. Um, we've kind of touched a little bit on like, you know, the psychology behind lifting a little bit, or you know, certain things like addiction. And so what I wanted to do today was kind of go a little bit over what I feel like, you know, what type of mindsets affect how you show up in the gym and how you progress. So I feel like specifically, most people don't sabotage their goals through like laziness. Uh instead, they usually just drift towards comfort. So they they choose the path that feels easiest emotionally and mentally, even if it slows their progress physically. So today we're gonna be going over how to make sure that you're not getting comfortable in your routine. And in my opinion, the three main mindset patterns to look out for. So, firstly, of those is avoidance behaviors. The next topic we'll go over is gonna be the mental discomfort tolerance. And lastly, is kind of like just why growth feels awkward. So, as we kind of dive into each of those, um, I would love to get your guys' feedback on each of them. Um, if you enjoy this, uh please let me know. If you like one topic more or one section of this video more than the other, you're welcome to kind of skip ahead to kind of get to the nitty-gritty of those that you do want. Um, but yeah, so for first, what I want to go over, like I mentioned, was avoidance behaviors. So avoidance rarely looks dramatic. It's usually small decisions that just continuously steer somebody away from a challenge. So it's usually never like, oh, this person just up and quit the gym. They're done. They're never going. It's it's usually not that. It's usually that might happen, but it's usually preceded by more subtle ways that somebody has stopped kind of showing up or stopped pushing themselves. It tends to show up in more subtle ways that then lead to something where they, you know, stop coming to the gym or they have decided to not pursue their goals. Um, so one of those examples could just be, you know, somebody's choosing weights that they're already good at. Let's say they haven't even, you know, stopped being consistent at the gym. Somebody could still be very consistent, but they're avoiding one of the key reasons that you go to the gym, which is to challenge yourself, to push yourself. And so one thing that they may start doing is they just are choosing weights that they're already good at or exercises that they love. They have, you know, maybe somebody just loves doing a squat or like a leg extension or leg press, and they'll just only do that one. You know, that'll be like the main one. They'll always have that, you know, two, three times a week. Um, not that that's a bad thing, but it it can be if that's your go-to, because oh, maybe, you know, I don't know what to do. I don't have a plan for the day. And so you just default to those exercises rather than having the intention behind it. It's kind of like your fallback, basically, of like, oh yeah, yeah, I'll just go do these because you know that you're good at them. So again, you're still going to the gym, you're still having that consistency, but you're starting to fall away from that challenge. You're kind of just picking things by default, or you know, what feels good in the moment. And so that tends to just be like a you know, one of the smaller steps or you know, behaviors that somebody may have when they're getting comfortable. Because comfortable doesn't always mean that you're regressing or that you're not progressing, it's just cool. Hey, okay, you know, you're starting to get comfortable with where you're at. You've kind of lost a little bit of that motivation. Um, another reason that avoidance behaviors is big is because typically you will start to avoid movements that expose a weakness. So you kind of default to the movements that feel really good because you're like, yeah, I can do those. This is where I'm at. This is perfect for me. I know how to do those. I'm not gonna look awkward doing them. I know that I'm I'm good with those. And instead of doing the movements that's like, okay, you know, I've I've been doing lunges or I've been doing squats for a while. Maybe I should try like a single leg squat, or maybe I need to try some Bulgarian split squats or just other exercises, basically. Those are just examples, it could be anything. Um I don't know why all of those were just leg exercises. There's plenty of other ones that you can do. Um, those are just the first ones that kind of came to mind. But you avoid movements that expose a weakness. And if anyone knows what a Bulgarian split squat is, that is just one of the most hated exercises there are, but it's just it's also one of the best, in my opinion. I think it's a phenomenal exercise. But it's a tough one because it requires also a lot of balance. And for a lot of people, when they're first, you know, doing them, balance is one of the harder things, especially as we get older and our balance gets worse and worse as we age. Those become just a lot harder because of how much balance is required, depending on how you do them. So continuing on, um, avoidance can be so avoidance can also kind of be like a protection method um from like embarrassment or failure or just even like uncertainty. Like if you're uncertain you can do something, okay. You know, I don't I don't really feel comfortable doing it right now. I don't want to, you know, embarrass myself, maybe, or I don't want to, you know, I I know I you tell yourself, oh, I know I can't do that, so I'm not gonna even try. And if you're trying to progress, I mean you have to be, you have to be willing to fail at some point. I know I've talked about this prior, and I'm sure this is no news to anyone, but but life is not a you know linear trail going just straight up. You're never gonna have a perfect path. You're gonna have those bumps in the roads, you're going to fail at some point in your life. If you haven't failed at all in your life, then you there's a very good chance either you're lying to yourself or or you just haven't tried anything in life and you will are living a very comfortable life, in which case, maybe good for you, depending on how that lifestyle is, if you're enjoying it, but more than likely not. I'm so sorry to hear that. If you hate me for that, I'll take it. Um, but yeah, I mean, you're you're going to fail at some point in life. And if you're choosing to actively avoid failing in the gym, a place where you're meant to push yourself, where going to failure is a good thing. Like failure may be bad in other places, but in the gym, failing is honestly a good thing. As long as you're safe while you're doing it. Um, and so that avoidance, you have an avoidance behavior. It's again not just gonna be okay, he quit the gym right away the moment he failed. It might just be okay, hey, I'm choosing, I you know, I'm I'm embarrassed to fail, or I'm embarrassed to try this exercise because I know my balance isn't good. I, you know, I can't balance on one leg very well. So I'm not gonna try a certain exercise. And so avoidance can just be a protection method from those or for those things. And so again, even though it it feels in the moment like, no, it's okay, like this isn't that big of a deal. If you notice these repetitive patterns, that's the big key. You want to be able to notice the patterns. Are you constantly choosing to, you know, not embarrass yourself? Are you constantly choosing to not go until failure? Are you constantly trying to protect your you know, yourself from something and avoid any exposure to weaknesses? Those are kind of like some of the examples because avoidance can even disguise itself as productivity, honestly. And this was a good reality check for myself as well, because I I think I always this is something that I always forget about, but like it can show up as productivity. And for example, so let's say you're meant to go in and work out, um, and maybe you know you forgot your pre-workout or something. And so rather than going and working out, you choose, okay, I'm gonna research some supplements, you know, maybe I'm gonna just watch some training videos to get me motivated. Um, rather than just going and working out, you disguise as like, oh no, I'm I'm being productive. You know, I I didn't have my pre-workout, or you know, I didn't have you know my creatine today, so I can't go work out. I need to, I need to find some that I really like. So I'm gonna do some research, figure out what they are. That way I, you know, I can go again in the future and make sure that I'm I'm good. Or, you know, I got to watch these training videos to get me motivated, or you know, I'm just doing it as research to figure out what type of exercises are best for me. You know, I want to make sure that I have the right routine, that perfect plan, rather than just going and getting your body moving. You're choosing to kind of avoid the harder decision there because it it is harder. It's harder to get up, get out of your house, go to the gym, you know, move your body, work out, and drive back home. It's harder to do that than it is to, you know, maybe sit on your couch or sit at a dining room table or wherever you're at and just do a little bit of research. You know, maybe it's something you're even good at. And so rather than going and doing the harder thing, you're avoiding it. You're choosing, okay, I'm just gonna do this research. I'm being productive, I'm making the most of my time when in reality, that research isn't getting you any closer to your physical goals than going and working out. It may, sure, there may be some benefit to it, but the reality is, is if you keep doing research, if you keep just looking up these videos and you don't actually get out there and move, you're building a pattern of avoidance. And that's the hard thing. Because again, that can show up in so many different ways. And so that's one of those where, like, you know, I've had to check myself as well. I noticed that there are certain times where it's like, oh yeah, I'm just I'm personally choosing to, you know, avoid going to the gym, or I'm I choose to avoid doing a podcast episode because I'm like, ah, it's just not the right one. I don't feel like this is good enough. Let me just keep doing some more research. And so you always find a reason to not go and do the hard thing. Progress usually lives on the other side of the thing that you keep finding reasons to delay. So you have to be willing to say, hey, I notice this pattern of avoidance that I've been getting. I've I've been growing more avoidant from doing the hard things, from the challenge of putting myself in an uncomfortable position. And I'm noticing that pattern. I need to find a way to break that pattern. What how can I go and just put myself in an uncomfortable position, especially when you really don't want to? And that kind of leads into our next topic. So the mental discomfort tolerance. So in reality, the limiting factor is how often someone is is being uncomfortable, is willing to be uncomfortable. So, how how often you can be comfortable being uncomfortable? How often you're willing to kind of put yourself into those challenging positions where you don't know how to do a certain exercise properly, or you know, maybe you're trying to, you know, meal prep and you're exhausted. So that's kind of like the big key behind it is like, okay, something may feel uncomfortable, and uncomfortable can look in many forms. It could be a hard set that's just really burning. Maybe you're on those last few reps and it's it's starting to burn a little bit. And so you're like, I really don't want to do more because I know this is gonna this is gonna suck. We've all had some times like that, and so you kind of just stop. You're just like, okay, I'm gonna call it there. I'm good. I don't, I don't need to push it on those last few reps. And so you choose to not put your yourself into that, you know, discomfort, both physical and and it is mental. It is a mental battle. Your mind is gonna want to give up before your body does. And those last few reps is what will push you to one, get better physical results, and then two, it helps that mental discomfort, it helps push you to be willing to be in an uncomfortable position, and that's where a lot of that growth happens. A lot of the best benefit comes from those last couple reps where you push yourself and it's just killing you. That's where some of the best growth happens, and new things are gonna look clumsy if you're trying something new, a new exercise, it's not gonna be perfect the first time. Even if it's a similar movement to ones you've done before, there's a good chance it's probably still not, you know, spot on the very first time you do it. Unless you're a very experienced lifter, you've been doing it for years, in which case, sure, that you know, there is that chance, but at that point, you're probably not having a lot of issue with being in that mental discomfort. You've probably built up that good resilience. So consistency itself requires a discomfort tolerance in order to kind of become one of those people who've been doing this for years and have shown a lot of growth and are achieving their goals and have kind of built out their routines. You have to be consistent. But in order to do that, and in order to get to those levels, you have to be willing to have a high mental you know discomfort tolerance. You have to be willing to consistently put yourself in uncomfortable positions. You have to be willing to do that over and over again and build that tolerance up. And sometimes it looks, it doesn't always have to be super physical. Sometimes it's it's you know, hey, I'm gonna just wake up early. I'm gonna start with just waking up early. I know I don't want to, I'm exhausted, long days, but waking up early, and then hey, maybe you do go to the gym. But starting out with just something to get you uncomfortable. I'm gonna wake up early, you know, maybe I'll try and go to the gym. There's like I mentioned before, maybe it's meal prepping when you're tired, and you have all these excuses not to do something because it's uncomfortable. And so you have to be able to push past that. Um, in a lot of the videos, or not in a lot, but in a few of the videos that I've done in the past, we've talked about like stress management, things like that. And so I'm not necessarily saying here, hey, push through all of that stress, push through all of that, you know, craziness that's going in life. You know, you only have a 30 minutes for a workout, push through it all, just go, go, go. Like there is a limit to everything, and you really do want to find kind of like a balance between, okay, it has been a super stressful week. I really don't think I can push myself to my limits like I have in the past, and understand that that that's okay. You don't have to do that every single time. You don't have to try and kill yourself every single time during a workout. But if every single week, for you know, months and months and months to maybe even years is exhausting, there might be more going on. You're more likely having that avoidance, an avoidance behavior. And maybe you just haven't built up that mental discomfort tolerance to be like, okay, I know every single week is exhausting, but I haven't been seeing any progress in the gym. How do I beat that? That's where it becomes okay, I gotta break that uncomfortable habit. I gotta build up my, you know, discomfort tolerance. And so you push yourself really hard, or you do something that, you know, while you're exhausted, you do something that's gonna benefit you in the long run. Our brain is wired for short-term relief over the long-term gain. So kind of like how doom scrolling versus like maybe going for a walk. You know, when you're exhausted from a long day, you come home, you kind of just sit on the couch and you start just scrolling through, you know, Instagram or YouTube, you're just looking at all the videos. Cause that's, you know, it's it's mindless. It's a great way to just shut your brain off. You don't have to think. And a lot of ways, that's that's a lot of people's pastime. I know I'm definitely guilty of that. The amount of times where I'm like trying to go to bed and I'm just like scrolling on my phone, and you know, what fail, what feels like five or ten minutes? I look and it's been like an hour, and I'm like, oh, okay, not good. It is very much a pastime that I know I think especially. I know wow, oh my goodness. I know I think especially. Yep, that's we're doing great. Um, I would say what I meant to say was doom scrolling, I know is something that a lot of people struggle with, if not you know, most people. Just because social media has become such a humongous thing in our lives, that is something that we're all we're all kind of a part of, or at least a lot of us are. And it is kind of the easy way out as opposed to getting the body moving. So, you know, rather than doom scrolling to relax, going for a walk after a long day is great for relieving stress, great for kind of relaxing that body. You're getting, you know, some fresh oxygen outside, and you're letting your kind of body wind down after a long day. And it doesn't need to be an intense walk. I'm not saying, you know, go three, five miles at a very brisk pace. I'm saying, hey, go outside, get some fresh air, take some deep breaths, and really just try and relax the body. It'll do a whole heck of a lot more for you than doom scrolling. But our body and our mind are like, okay, I just want to sit, I don't want to do anything. It's been such a long day, so I'm gonna just, you know, scroll on my phone. But building that discomfort tolerance of like, I've been on my feet all day, I'm just gonna go for a walk. It might be discomfort, it might be uncomfortable at first, but building that tolerance up in the long run, that walking is gonna be so much more beneficial for you. So now what I what I want you guys to kind of keep in mind is that discomfort is not the enemy of progress, it's often just a signal that progress is happening when you are putting yourself through that those discomfort phases and things are feeling a little uncomfortable every now and then. That's usually a sign, okay. Hey, maybe I've been comfortable for a while. I'm trying something new, I'm pushing myself past my limits, I'm really trying to grow, and it is just exhausting. If it feels uncomfortable, that's usually a sign that progress is happening. That is a good thing. And it kind of leads into our next question, our next topic, which is why growth feels awkward. Whenever someone is learning like a new movement or they're building like a new habit, their nervous system, your nervous system, is adapting. And that adaptation process is messy. You're trying to, you know, recruit muscle fibers, you're trying to build coordination, you're trying to, you know, learn something new, quite literally. And your nervous system has to adapt to that. So as you are putting yourself in these uncomfortable positions, if you're getting rid of the you're trying to you're trying to avoid the avoidance behavior, you're trying to push yourself and really grow, it's gonna feel awkward at times because especially if you're getting into like weightlifting and you're trying to, you know, lift heavier weights and you know, or Try a new exercise, it's gonna feel weird, you know. The technique may feel inconsistent. Um, and it's gonna happen like that while the nervous system is just recruiting more muscle fibers and it's trying to coordinate the movement patterns. I don't know why I always go to squat squats. We're gonna we're gonna change, change topics. You know, let's say we're doing like a pull-up or something. Um, while you're trying to learn pull-ups, and you know, you may have to start out with something easier, maybe like a dead hang or you know, hold at the top range of motion, um, maybe even getting into some scapula pull-ups. You're gonna have to learn different movement patterns to help create one if you're not able to. And so you have this kind of progression field where you're doing new things constantly, and your body is getting used to it of like, okay, hey, we haven't really done this before. How the heck are we gonna do this? And so that's where, like, that's where you have to be able to understand, okay, this is it's meant to be a little awkward, it's meant to be a little uncomfortable because it's new. You're trying to your your nervous system is physically trying to recruit more muscle fibers, it's trying to build the build a system that hasn't been done before. And so you're not gonna be perfect the first time. You have to learn to kind of just like in I gotta stop saying that so much. Sorry, thoughts out loud. Um, you have to try and interpret discomfort as something wrong, as you have to sorry, sometimes you just gotta let it out. You have to learn that interpreting discomfort as something wrong rather than a normal rather than a normal part of adaptation is kind of normal. Most people do this. A lot of people tend to interpret discomfort as okay, I shouldn't be doing this. When in reality, it's a normal part of your body's growing process. As you learn new things, as you continue to build more muscle, or as you continue to, you know, get smarter, as you're as your you know brain is processing new information, you're gonna have this just discomfort feeling. And you have to be able to tell yourself and kind of fight the urge to not do it, and tell yourself, hey, no, it's it's okay. I know I fell doing those box jumps, or I almost completely ate it, one of those things, or you know, I dropped the weights while I was doing lunges because my balance was off. You have to be able to tell yourself, okay, it's all right. I'm learning this is a new weight, this is a new exercise. Um, this is a new field of work, even. Or, you know, I have I haven't ever made these meals for my meal prep before, I've never cooked this food before. You're learning something new, and so that discomfort is normal. And you have to kind of fight that urge to be like, nope, this is uncomfortable. I'm gonna stick with what I know. You have to be you have to be willing to fight that urge because growth requires stepping into the unfamiliar sometimes and feeling awkward or having that messy feeling. In order to grow, there are times where you need to step into that discomfort. And I understand that it is much easier to be like, oh, but I've been doing this for a long time, or I'm you know, I I know what I'm doing, I've kind of got my own routine. But if you haven't been seeing any results, or the results have been very minimum, then there's a good chance that you've been doing it for too long and you've been getting comfortable. So you have to be able to be like, okay, be honest with yourself, and be like, oh man, okay. You know, I really haven't been seeing a lot of results. I've been doing this for, you know, two to five years, and I feel like I'm kind of at the same place. Or hey, maybe I'm even actually a little bit worse off. So what do I need to change? What what do I need to be uncomfortable with? What do what is something messy that I need to try? What's something new? You're constant, you're, I shouldn't say constantly, but you are going to have a lot of doubts, a lot of misunderstandings, and a lot of just uncomfortable feelings, and you're gonna want to avoid them. You're not gonna want to push through that discomfort, but when you do, and it feels awkward, you still have to be able to be like, okay, it's fine, this is a part of my journey, and keep going because the truth is when people see you doing that, that's gonna inspire them. I know that when I see people who are pushing themselves or they're like trying something new, or they're they come up to me and they're like, hey, like I've never done this before, and they ask me questions. I love it. It is one of the coolest things to see people grow. That's why I'm in the field that I'm in, is because I'm like, man, I love getting to see people's lives change and see them kind of regain the youth that they had because they've started to push themselves to do things that they felt uncomfortable doing, that they were like, Yeah, there's you know, there's no way I can do that anymore. I'm, you know, maybe I'm too old for that or something along those lines. And the reality is, is like you're only saying that because you're comfortable with where you're at and you don't want to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation where you may fail. But sometimes that failure can lead to a success down the line if you're willing to keep going for it. So, to kind of recap everything, thank you for coming to my TED talk. Um as I go to recap everything, I want to kind of just remind you guys, or yeah, just let you know that comfort is going to encourage avoidance, and then avoidance is going to expose you to or avoidance is going to expose you to challenges, and if you're okay, we're gonna start over. Rewind that real quick. Comfort is going to encourage avoidance, and avoidance is going to reduce the exposure to challenges. Got it. Uh, and without challenge, uh that your mind and the body never adapt. You continue to just be very stagnant, you see minimal, gradual, you see minimal progress, and that might mean you need to start choosing the harder exercises or you know, finishing that last set, even when it really burns, or sticking with a routine long enough for adaptation to occur. Because that is the other the other side to this, is if you keep swapping things up too often, which I would like to, you know, make that clarification on, is if you are still swap, if you are somebody who just is swapping things up all the time, you're avoiding the consistency of a routine. Routines are a thing for a reason, is because it's meant to help you progress, but it's not meant to be your routine forever. So use it as long as it's helping you get progress, but also you need to be honest with yourself. And okay, has my progress slowed down and by how much? And if it's by quite a bit and you're not really seeing any progress, it might be time to swap things up. But if you're swapping constantly, you're also not giving your body the ability to see progress because it's constantly trying to adjust to new things all the time rather than allowing it to grow in the area that you you know a routine will help it grow in. I hope all of this made sense. I'm clueless, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just kidding. No, um, this is a really fun topic for me though. Uh so as we do kind of close out here, one thing I want to say is if any of you guys have like, you know, maybe a psychologist or you know, a um somebody who is in, you know, mind studies, whatever you want to call it, psychology, uh, if you know anybody in um that type of field, please let me know. I would love to, I'm I would love to get some um brains behind that and have someone come on the podcast for it. That's then the one area that I am still currently looking for. So if anyone has anybody, any recommendations, please feel free to let me know. Um, if you guys enjoyed the podcast, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a like, a comment, subscribe, let me know how I'm doing. I would love the feedback. And also if you guys have any questions as well, or even corrections on maybe some information that I've given, please seriously leave comments. I will always do my best to try and you know reply to them as soon as I can. I really enjoy getting to do these. Thank you guys so much. And I hope you guys have a wonderful, wonderful week. And I will see you guys again next week with another episode. Thank you.