Are You Ready to Do Better?

Are you ready to do better?

If your answer is “no,” this article may not be what you want to read.

However, if your answer is “YES” enthusiastically, this article is for you.

Are you ready to feel DISCOMFORT?

Based on the definition from the Cambridge dictionary, “discomfort” means: “The feeling of not being comfortable, either from a physical cause or from a situation, or something that causes this feeling[.].

Does it sound terrifying to you?

It does for me, but I am willing to face it anyway because, based on my experience, it helps me grow. Let’s recall what brought us today. We must have been encountering discomfort since we were born. We struggled to communicate when we could not even speak a word. Then, we gradually started to express a single sound, a word, a sentence, and so on. We had discomfort in trying to sit and stand when we were little. Now, we take sitting and standing for granted.

“Learning and trying to master a new thing always bring us uneasiness, but it is temporary.” — Aun Gregg.

Learning and trying to master a new thing or skill always make us uncomfortable. But, it is only temporary if we continuously work on it.

Why is it important to embrace the discomfort during the process of being better?

I have read a few articles and came across the term desirable difficulty.

The term ‘desirable difficulties’ was coined by cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork, and describes the counterintuitive concept that there are ways of learning that may feel less effective and lead to more errors during the learning process, but that lead to better performance in the long term.- Annie Brookman-Byrne, Deputy Editor BOLD

Let’s put it this way; we need to face the right amount of difficulties to gain what we want to achieve. Those difficulties are called desirable difficulties.

To get better at something, it is normal and a must to feel uneasy, awkward, and embarrassed because we will have to come across many obstacles that require our existing skills to overcome them till we no longer feel that those are our barriers.

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Recently, I subscribed to a premium membership of Harvard Business Review, and I got an email recommending a few articles I should read. One of those articles is If You Want to Get Better at Something, Ask Yourself These Two Questions, written by Peter Bregman.

He wrote about the two questions that you need to say yes to if you want to do better in anything:

Do you really want to do better?
Are you willing to feel the discomfort of trying new things that won’t work right away?

He mentioned that anyone can do better if they say “yes” to the two questions.

Learning anything new is, by its nature, uncomfortable. You will need to act in ways that are unfamiliar. Take risks that are new. Try things that, in many cases, will be initially frustrating because they won’t work the first time. You are guaranteed to feel awkward. You will make mistakes. You may be embarrassed or even feel shame, especially if you are used to succeeding a lot. — Peter Bregman

So, improving yourself to a higher level requires difficulties that definitely create discomfort in any form for you, both physically and mentally.

What you can and need to do is “keep going.”

I will end my article with a statement written by Peter Bregman in Learning is Supposed to Feel Uncomfortable:

Being a beginner at something can feel awkward and embarrassing. And those are hard feelings to feel. But they are the inescapable growth pains that come with learning, developing, and becoming better at something.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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