On Handling Discomfort: Learnings From An Olympic Gold Medalist.
Here's what Etienne Stott the gold medal champion for canoeing from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London made me realize about hardships.
“Life as an Olympic sportsman is daunting at times. I constantly have to push my body and mind to extreme levels of pressure so that I force excellence out of me and use it on demand during our competitions. When you reach that level of handling pressure, it’s like an on and off switch. You see that ditch approaching and is going to be difficult to maneuver, you feel the pressure building, switch on, Bam! Now I am calm, patient, and attacking it in my highest performing zone. It’s not easy, takes years of practice but its something worth attaining for life.” — Etienne Stott, Gold Medalist, Canoeing, London Summer Olympics (2012).
We as humans are programmed to shy away from the slightest prospect of discomfort. It’s an unnerving thought and we all fall victims to it. I don’t blame you or even myself for being this way. Studies have shown that the human mind is excellent at identifying repetitive patterns and maintains a repository of these patterns/behaviors that facilitate long-term survival or instant gratification. In the Palaeolithic era or more commonly known as the Old Stone Age this tendency of striking out patterns and repeating them became exceptionally rewarding for primitive human beings and led to the formation of higher cognitive functions such as the formation of tools and eventually drawing and writing. The human brain thrives in a predictable environment as it allows the brain to figure out avenues of not only self-sustenance but also enhancing those methods to the precipice of least effort possible as effort is discomforting.
A directly proportional relationship between the brain’s ability to predict its immediate environment and the increase in the chances of its host’s survival has laid the foundation of modern human society. Fast-forwarding after millions of years to 2020 due to evolution the modern human being with its consistently increasing cognitive capabilities (owing to the base encoded behavior of identifying patterns) has automated 95% of all its manual tasks even thinking (hint: Artificial Intelligence) to make sure that we as a collective species face the passage to least resistance in all areas of life. Of course, there are some caveats to what these areas of least resistance are and subjectivity would make it different for you and me but in its entirety, human civilization has definitely come a long way from fighting wolves to eating delicious microwaveable food for survival. With each passing decade, life for most will become simpler and easier to sustain, basic survival for all will be attainable and we humans are the ones working towards it.
As life becomes increasingly simpler our tolerance for handling the pressure that brings discomfort will exponentially decrease. This inverse relationship begs the question that how does one ensure victory over the modern perils of the 21st century. No matter how sophisticated and simpler we humans design our lives to become something will eventually go awry and create discomfort. Even AI has the potential to mutate into Skynet someday! It’s a constant tussle for us, it’s also our greatest source of inspiration for innovation. Although philosophy will placate these perils for a while, I am looking for some actionable insights which I learned from Etienne and compiled with some of my own on how to strengthen the mind in the light of incoming discomfort and the pressure that precedes it; that’s what want to share my readers through this article. Mastering discomfort for your personal advancements comes in three critical steps.
#1 Perspective: Control It.
Marcus Aurelius once said, “Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition. What stands in your way becomes your way.”
Our generation needs an approach for overcoming obstacles and thriving amid chaos more than ever. An approach that will help turn our problems on their heads, and use them as canvasses on which we paint our masterworks. Hence making your perspective flexible is fit for an entrepreneur or an artist, a conqueror or a coach, whether you’re a struggling writer or a sage or a hardworking mother. It’s for anyone and everyone. We go through life as a vessel of external feelings, ideas, desires, goals, and values imposed on us from the outside by society. We internalize them and think these are the reflections of our base personality however, it’s not. Overcoming discomfort and using it to our advantage begins with our aptitude and approach towards it. The discipline of perception requires objective judgment, now at this very moment. The first instinct of the mind is to give in to the impulse of being overwhelmed. Epictetus once said, “Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to test.” Everything in our animalistic brain tries to compress the space between impression and perception. Think, perceive, act–within milliseconds between them. A deer’s brain tells it to run because things are bad. It runs. Sometimes, right into traffic.
We can question that impulse if we just control our perspective. We can disagree with it. We can override the switch, examine the threat before we act. Becoming objective requires removing “you”–the subjective part–from the equation. Just think about what happens when we give others advice. Their problems are crystal clear to us, the solutions obvious. Hence, in moments when you feel that intensity of pressure building, your cortisol rising, stress hormone peaking, give yourself clarity, not sympathy. The perceiving eye sees more than what is there, perceiving eye is weak so you operate on observation instead, that eye is strong. It’s an exercise, the more you try it the better you get at it. Even Marcus Aurelius had this exercise where he’d describe glamorous or expensive things without their euphemisms–roasted meat is a dead animal and vintage wine is old fermented grapes. The goal was to see these things as they really are, without any ornamentation. The better you become seeing things for what they are, the more perception will work for you rather than against you. (Holiday, 2016)
#2 Action: Deploy it.
Problems are rarely as bad as we think–or rather, they are exactly as bad as we think. It’s a giant step forward to realize that the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. Because then you’ll have two problems (one of them unnecessary and post hoc). The demand on you is this: once you see the world as it is, you must act. Once you control your perspective it’s a step easier. A clearer head makes for steadier heads. And those hands must be put to work. Good use. Let’s extrapolate what is the action? Action is mainstream, right action is not.
As a discipline, it’s not any kind of action that will do, the whole. Step by step, action by action, we’ll dismantle the obstacles in front of us. With persistence and flexibility, we’ll act in the best interest of our goals. Action requires courage, not brashness–creative application and not brute force. Our behavior and movements define us: acting with deliberation, boldness, and targeted action. (Holiday, 2016) These are the exact attributes of correct and required action. Nothing else at all–we must not think of evasion and/or aid from others. Our deterministic approach and targeted action are the cure to our predicaments. “We must either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out.”– Theodore Roosevelt
Amelia Earhart wanted to become a superior aviator. However gender equality and women's empowerment were still taking their early steps in the male-dominated American aviation industry of the 1920s; thinking women are frail while women's suffrage was not even a decade old. One day her phone rang and the man on the other side had a pretty offensive proposition for her along the lines of: “Someone wants to fund the first female transatlantic flight. You won’t really get to fly the plane. We are going to send two men with you who would fly the plane and will also get paid all the funds and you won’t receive anything out of it. Oh! and you might die doing that trip.” Do you know what was Earhart’s reply? She said yes. Because that’s exactly what people who defy all odds stacked against them do. That’s exactly how people become great at things–whether it’s aviation or crashing through gender stereotypes–DO! They begin. Anywhere.Anyhow.
Conditions don’t intimidate them because they’re backed by an avalanche of momentum which is self-generated and they know they can make it work. Life can be frustrating, in many cases for most it is. An immigrant mother working two jobs to support a family of four, or a climate activist generating funds via door-to-door awareness for their campaign. But those are the people who end up making an impact. They have a bias for action. When the going gets rough, tell yourself that: The time for analysis has passed. The wind is rising, the bell’s been rung. Get started. Get moving. While overpaid CEOs take long vacations and hide behind their inboxes and autoresponders, some college-dropout programmer is working eighteen-hour days coding the start-up that will completely obliterate that CEOs business out of the galaxy!
That’s the power of consistent, targeted, driven to madness call for action. We as a collective society are going soft! Whether it’s sleeping, traveling, gaming, or just browsing online. We’re not aggressive enough with the agendas that decide the trajectory of our lives. Not pressing hard. Making the room for obstacles in our lives too large. We talk a lot about courage as a society, we tend to forget that at its foundation level it’s primarily just defaulting to action. Just because conditions aren’t exactly to your liking, or you don’t feel equipped yet, doesn’t necessarily mean you get a pass. If you want to generate significant momentum, an avalanche of force, a sun-sized meteor you have to create a bias for action, right now by getting up and getting started. “He says that, “the best way out is always through, and I agree to that, or in so far, as I can see no way out but through.”–Robert Frost.
#3 Will Power: Strengthen It.
Not many people know this, but “Honest Abe” here was a poster boy for chronic depression throughout his life. Since he has transformed into more myth than a man through time many overlook the fact that even one of the greatest political leaders in history battled crippling depression for the most part of his life. Known at the time as melancholy–this depression nearly drove him to suicide on two separate occasions. His tendency for cracking gut-hitting jokes and bawdy laughter were mere defense mechanisms for helping him cope with his darker moments.
Lincoln’s life was defined by enduring and transcending adversities. Born in rural poverty, losing their mother whilst still a child, self-educating himself, practicing law as a self-taught student, losing the woman he loved as a young man, experiencing multiple discouraging defeats at the ballot box while venturing into politics. His own brush and intimate experience with depression and failures drove his compassion to allay it in others. He learned patience because he realized early that arduous things take time. But most of all he taught himself to find purpose and meaning through the dark clouds of uncertainty and drew motivation from believing in a cause bigger than himself and his personal struggles.
He was a political novice but an expert, master on the matters of will and patience, exactly what the country needed to help it get through the tumultuous era of the Civil War. As crafty, resourceful, and ingenious Abe was his real strength was his ability to resign himself to an inconvenient task without becoming hopeless about it. “This too shall pass.”, was Lincoln’s favorite saying. It is applicable in any and every situation of life to this day and forever. To be able to live with crippling depression, Lincoln built a strong fortress that girded him. Clearheadedness or actions sometimes are not enough in life.
Leadership requires determination and determination requires energy. Energy is created by the will of our minds. If perception and action were the disciplines of the mind and body, willpower is the discipline of the heart and soul.
Build your Inner Citadel: Live like a gladiator.
The Stoics defined the inner citadel as a fortress that inside each one of us that no external force or adversity can demolish. Nobody is born with such a structure, it needs to be nurtured and built with constant effort. We strengthen our bodies and mind during hardships. We protect our inner fortress so that it may power us. The world is a gladiator’s arena, there are infinite things that could be working to throw you off both actively or passively. In order to survive and thrive, you need to be strong, resilient, gallant, adaptable, and robust. Ready on your feet for anything. Why? Because you will have far better luck toughening yourself up than you will ever try to kick the world and making it submit to your indifferent existence. The path to least resistance is the worst teacher of them all. We just cannot afford to shy away from the avenues that intimidate us and we certainly cannot take our weaknesses for granted. It’s your armor plating and while it doesn’t make you invincible, it does helps prepare you when the sudden tides of fortune shift and it always will. Not everyone accepts their ugly starts in life. They rebuild themselves for the hard road, through the hard road. Nobody is born with a backbone of steel. We forge it ourselves. Your inner citadel will be your spiritual strength attained through physical strain, and physical strain through mental practice (sana in corpore sano: a sound mind in a strong body.)
If you think this article brought value to you and you would like to read more subscribe to this newsletter. I publish content every week.
Thanks for reading. See you next week!