Growth can be painful, not just for small kids, but throughout your life. Let’s take an honest look at the hardship of improvement.
WATCH THE VIDEO.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT.
“Growing pains” is a term used to describe muscle soreness (usually in the legs) of children between ages 3-5 or 8-11, during periods of rapid physical growth. Yet we never outgrow the discomfort of shedding our old selves for an upgrade.
And most people avoid pain, even when the hurt is quite helpful and necessary. But like any habit, you can get good at inviting short term pain for long term benefit.
For example, there’s the Physical pain from exercise, building strength, endurance, flexibility, and discipline. You literally weaken and tear muscle fibers to build them back stronger. This principle is called “super-compensation,” meaning your body responds more than necessary to repeated, predictable hardship.
There’s also Emotional/mental pain – addressing past trauma, addiction, or other personal issues, fears, or limiting stories, then doing the difficult work to transcend them.
Or Intellectual pain – Examining long held beliefs to discover they’re not true and need an upgrade. Learning, generally, can be quite taxing, as the more you learn, the more you may realize how little you know.
And Relational pain – Letting go of people who are holding you back or genuinely harmful. It’s never easy to say goodbye, even when necessary and well justified.
The good news is this gets easier with practice at confronting the tough stuff – welcoming the pain of steady growth, and coming out the other side. You learn to avoid avoidance and cut to the chase, because life is short and gets even better when you do. Until next week, stay Off Balance On Purpose.
The audio for this week’s coaching video is located under the “Get Inspired” tab in the Positive Playlist . You can subscribe to the podcast and listen to other weekly messages for improving all aspects of your life.