Finding Comfort in Discomfort
This morning I am sitting at Ozo in Boulder, having a coffee and a breakfast burrito alone, pondering the mysteries of the universe while on the mini-staycation I wrote about yesterday.
Over the past few days, with a short trip to Latvia canceled, the asks for my time have magically increased. It’s almost like the Universe knows that I have “free” space on my calendar reserved for me and is seeking to remedy that. Nature abhors a Vacuum after all.
The asks for my time come in several times an hour from all places — friends, family, work, strangers on the Internet and acquaintances.
I suppose that’s the price I pay for still having my phone on and not fully unplugging! Perhaps I am even engaging in self-sabotage? I really should talk to someone about going off grid :-) But, I decided to experiment with lightly monitoring email and Slack to see if I could control and moderate my usage, so I am fine with the experiment so far. Plus, I wanted to actually play with some new technology, like new apps and services — this blog being one of them! But I digress.
I already politely say No — a lot — and Drew, my Chief of Staff, helps me protect my time.
But I decided that I am only saying Yes to the things that were on my short priority list for this week. Everything else can wait a few days.
During this process, I realized that I am not always comfortable saying No. That’s one of the things the book Essentialism discusses at length.
One of the many things I have learned from Jerry Colonna at Reboot.io is the power of “sitting with one’s discomfort.”
During CEO Bootcamps or leadership team off-sites, when someone is feeling uncomfortable, Jerry doesn’t seek to comfort them.
Instead, he implores them to “sit with that feeling” for a moment.
The point is to really pause and notice the emotion, notice the feelings and thoughts. And to understand what’s really going on.
Our natural tendency is to get rid of the discomfort as soon as possible, and in doing so, we lose the opportunity to understand the root cause.
In exploring this emotion, I understand very well the very old causes of discomfort I have in saying No to people’s asks of my time.
I won’t go in-depth about the root cause during this post, but the side effect of it is that I yearn to connect with lots and lots of people and to please them — even often the expense of my own health or sanity. It’s also why I have an address book full of 8,000+ contacts, a large, vast, global network and started FullContact in the first place.
In other areas of life, I believe I have learned to be comfortable in a lot of uncomfortable conversations, often related to things like:
- Emotional responses and reactions
- Large sums of money
- High risk scenarios
- Hiring, firing, promoting and demoting
- Discussing performance or behavioral issues
- Childhood memories
- Life and death
- Unhealthy relationships
In fact, I find a lot of strange, awkward situations to be quite comfortable through lots of practice sitting in these “discomfort zones”
There’s a great saying — something to the effect of “your success is correlated with the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.”
I think this is very true.
But to do this, first I think you have to go deep on what makes you uncomfortable in any situation and really unpack why.
So, next time you are feeling uncomfortable, do your best to find comfort in the discomfort.
“Sit with it”, as Jerry would say, and figure out what’s really going on inside. I think you will learn a lot about yourself in the process.