Convenience is all destination and no journey.  …climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place.  Tim Wu

Ain’t modern life great?  We live in a truly amazing world of comfort, convenience & contentment.  While I sincerely appreciate my smart phone, instant hot water & BritBox on demand, I also realize that our infatuation with convenience has created some interesting problems…which is why I am encouraging you to do something uncomfortable every day.

Hypocrisies of Our Focus on Convenience

1. We say we support the “little guy”, yet Amazon delivery continues to grow unchecked.
2. We say we want to save money, yet we’ll easily spend $2.10 on a Grande coffee in the Starbucks drive through.
3. We say we care about healthful, quality food, yet we continue to outsource our meal production to restaurants & big food manufacturers like Tyson, Kraft, General Mills & Campbells.  (Nielson reports that our spending on food “away from home” as opposed to “at home” has increased 94% since 2003.)

While conveniences have made our lives easier, at some point we must question what makes life “worthwhile”.  Is it the outcome or the journey?  The outcome can often be easily achieved…but the journey can be full of difficulties & challenges.  And difficulties & challenges are what makes us “human”.

In reading TriTown‘s recent newsletter, I was pleased to see that Antonio Gonzalez & I are on the same page!  His suggestion to “Embrace daily physical challenges” resonated 100% with me.  As coaches, we both believe in the power of embracing struggle & discomfort every single day…we both believe in embracing the suck.  All of our athletes naturally gravitate towards challenges & things that are hard.  I mean…why would they decide to train for a marathon or an Ironman if they weren’t willing to embrace the suck?!

Hard training is all fine & dandy…but I’d really like to challenge you to look beyond your training for small, more regular ways to experience discomfort.  Here’s my question to you:  What have you done TODAY to make yourself uncomfortable?

Ways to Embrace Discomfort Every Day

Here are some ways you can get uncomfortable every single day:

• Take a cold shower
• Try a new vegetable
• Walk to a place you would normally drive to
• Breathe only through your nose
• Give a stranger a compliment
• Go 15-18hrs without eating
• Cut out ALL sugar for a week
• Do 10 push-ups every time you go to the bathroom
• Eliminate social media for a week
• Call people instead of texting them
• Mediate
• Try something new – music, craft, hobby, exercise
• Take on a fear – public speaking, water
• Ask more questions…and really LISTEN to the answers
• Turn off the TV
• Get up early
• Go to bed early
• Take a trip to a place you’ve never been
• Eliminate negative self-talk

And the list goes on & on.  The key, folks, is that the more you do things which make you uncomfortable, the more comfortable you get with being uncomfortable!  And the more you are comfortable with discomfort, the better able you’ll be to enjoy the journey!

Happy Training!

If you’re ready to get uncomfortable & overcome your fear of water, click here.  For info on coaching, click here.

If you’d like more info on this topic, watch my Facebook Live.