Why High Performers Learn to Stay Uncomfortable

I think obviously we need to start the discussion with what do I mean when I say uncomfortable? And in order to define how I have this in my brain, I want to bring up two other terms of distress and eustress.

So there's a level of stress that you can be under at any given time, any situation.

There's a level of stress that you're under, whether it's biologically, psychologically.

If the stress is really low, then we kind of become disengaged, right? We start to break down.

We're not peak performance.

We get bored.

We're just not really doing anything.

And then as the level of stress raises, our attention has to come in onto the situation more and more to the point where we reach this peak level of eustress, where it's a high level of stress, but it's actually positive for us because it's forcing us to engage, it's forcing us to focus, and it's actually driving more performance.

Whereas if you continue past that eustress into distress, if the stress level continues to raise, now all of a sudden it starts to become destructive to you.

To give better examples, let's break this down kind of first biologically and then psychologically.

So on a, on a biological level, right, we all know that our body responds to stress.

Biological creatures, all the way down to the cellular level, they're naturally lazy, right? Because we were-- we evolved in a era of scarce resources and scarce energy.

Your cells don't know that you're gonna have a meal tomorrow.

And so your cells are designed to do as little work as possible at all times.

Something like building muscle takes a lot of energy, and so the only reason, the only reason your body is gonna build more muscle is if you put it under stress to convince it that it needs more muscle in order to survive.

And so when you're lifting weights, the right amount of weight to lift is to the point where you're s- just starting to tear the muscles a little bit, and so they rebuild stronger.

And then obviously, if you continue past that into the distress realm, well, then you can tear ligaments, you can break bones, right? So at a biological level, there's a very clear difference between this, this idea of discomfort, distress, and eustress, like you're pushing you forward.

And so athletes that continue to develop themselves, they're constantly raising their capacity for discomfort as they're training, so they can lift more weight, so they can run faster, so they can run farther.

That's the whole point of training, is to intentionally put yourself into the right level of discomfort so that you can get better without going too far and breaking things.

So that's an easy way to understand it biologically.

Psychologically, it's actually in, in my opinion, really, really similar because there's a certain level of stress that allows you to focus, and then there's a level of stress that kinda breaks people down and can mean you get post-traumatic stress disorder or something.

If you look at it, it's actually really interesting, where when they look at people in the military and the people who actually suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, it's much more likely that you're gonna suffer PTSD if you are a rear echelon support person.

You know, you're on base.

You're not going off base at all, and, and that base gets bombed.

Like, that's, those are the people who are most likely to get PTSD versus the people who are actually out in the field, you know, the Navy SEALs, the people who are the ones actually bringing the fight to the enemy.

I think obviously we need to start the discussion with what do I mean when I say uncomfortable? And in order to define how I have this in my brain, I want to bring up two other terms of distress and eustress.

So there's a level of stress that you can be under at any given time, any situation.

There's a level of stress that you're under, whether it's biologically, psychologically.

If the stress is really low, then we kind of become disengaged, right? We start to break down.

We're not peak performance.

We get bored.

We're just not really doing anything.

And then as the level of stress raises, our attention has to come in onto the situation more and more to the point where we reach this peak level of eustress, where it's a high level of stress, but it's actually positive for us because it's forcing us to engage, it's forcing us to focus, and it's actually driving more performance.

Whereas if you continue past that eustress into distress, if the stress level continues to raise, now all of a sudden it starts to become destructive to you.

To give better examples, let's break this down kind of first biologically and then psychologically.

So on a, on a biological level, right, we all know that our body responds to stress.

Biological creatures, all the way down to the cellular level, they're naturally lazy, right? Because we were-- we evolved in a era of scarce resources and scarce energy.

Your cells don't know that you're gonna have a meal tomorrow.

And so your cells are designed to do as little work as possible at all times.

Something like building muscle takes a lot of energy, and so the only reason, the only reason your body is gonna build more muscle is if you put it under stress to convince it that it needs more muscle in order to survive.

And so when you're lifting weights, the right amount of weight to lift is to the point where you're s- just starting to tear the muscles a little bit, and so they rebuild stronger.

And then obviously, if you continue past that into the distress realm, well, then you can tear ligaments, you can break bones, right? So at a biological level, there's a very clear difference between this, this idea of discomfort, distress, and eustress, like you're pushing you forward.

And so athletes that continue to develop themselves, they're constantly raising their capacity for discomfort as they're training, so they can lift more weight, so they can run faster, so they can run farther.

That's the whole point of training, is to intentionally put yourself into the right level of discomfort so that you can get better without going too far and breaking things.

So that's an easy way to understand it biologically.

Psychologically, it's actually in, in my opinion, really, really similar because there's a certain level of stress that allows you to focus, and then there's a level of stress that kinda breaks people down and can mean you get post-traumatic stress disorder or something.

If you look at it, it's actually really interesting, where when they look at people in the military and the people who actually suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, it's much more likely that you're gonna suffer PTSD if you are a rear echelon support person.

You know, you're on base.

You're not going off base at all, and, and that base gets bombed.

Like, that's, those are the people who are most likely to get PTSD versus the people who are actually out in the field, you know, the Navy SEALs, the people who are the ones actually bringing the fight to the enemy.