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Growth Spurt: Build Your Capacity for Discomfort · The Growth Project

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  You.
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  Welcome back to another Growth Spurt episode, a bite sized version of the Growth Project podcast that aims to help you pursue better and be better. My name is Doctor Gabby Cavities, and today I want to talk to you about deliberate discomfort. Most of us spend a lot of energy trying to make life comfortable, and something we talk about all the time and preach with our clients as getting comfortable, being uncomfortable.
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  I want you to think about what it would look like to have a little bit of chosen discomfort
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  and here's the idea behind this your ability to handle stress works a lot like a muscle. It adapts the demands that you're placing on it. When you voluntarily take on small, hard, challenging things, you're essentially doing reps.
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  Stress reps. If you will. You're teaching your nervous system. I can be uncomfortable and still be okay. I can stay calm and composed and keep going. And the interesting part is that this tolerance transfers the composure you build by finishing a hard workout or sitting through the awkward conversation instead of avoiding it. Doesn't stay locked in that one situation.
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  In fact, it shows up later in all high pressure situations, whether that be a meeting or a stressful deadline you're trying to reach. You've already practiced staying steady when things felt hard through deliberate practice. So there's an important, important distinction here. This is about chosen discomfort, not random suffering. Right. So the goal isn't to make yourself miserable.
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  It's to deliberately step slightly outside your comfort zone.
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  The 5% rule. Challenge yourself to get 5%
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  that you become accustomed to that feeling. You start training your nervous system to respond and stay steady under stress and discomfort. So here's the challenge for this week. I want you to pick one chosen discomfort, one chosen hard. Just one simple, maybe small, uncomfortable
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  task you're going to take on.
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  This could be having a conversation you've been avoiding. Going to the gym, having a harder workout than normal,
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  or even just sitting in boredom for ten minutes. No. No phone, no distractions. Just letting it feel uncomfortable. Sitting in silence. Doesn't really matter what you choose, as long as it is something that elicits some feeling of discomfort.
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  each time you challenge yourself with something like this, you're proving to yourself that you can handle those uncomfortable feelings.
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  I'll leave you with this. That comfort feels good in the now, right? But it quietly shrinks your capacity to do hard things. So start trying to do the hard things consistently and start training yourself
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  to respond to discomfort. Thank you for tuning in to this growth spurt episode, and we look forward to having you on the next one.