Discomfort of Mastery

“Nobody wants to do it — not real change, not soul change, not the painful molecular change required to truly become who you need to be. Nobody ever does real transformation for fun. Nobody ever does it on a dare. You do it only when your back is so far against the wall that you have no choice anymore.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

This post is from a chapter of the book, ‘Life’, and can be downloaded for free in its entirety here.

On the morning of February 16, 2017, I was walking to meet with an entrepreneur. Out of nowhere, I was struck by a motor vehicle. I was paralyzed from the waist down. I was hospitalized for 40 days. The doctor told me I would never walk again.

“This is the chapter of life that Joseph Campbell called “The Dark Night of the Soul” — and it’s a necessary step in every hero’s journey. It’s also the hardest thing in the world. Nobody ever chooses to stand in this place; it just happens to you. And you will often see later that it needed to happen to you, if you were to ever become more than a mere passenger on Earth. Because this dark place is where you must decide whether to die or live. You cannot go back to what you knew, because what you knew is a pile of smoking rubble. You cannot stay where you are, because where you are is a bleak shroud of despair. You can only move forward into the absolute unknown. And the only way to move forward is to change.”

Life threw me a curveball, a roadblock, a detour. It was so easy to give up and back down from the breakthrough by telling myself — rationalizing — my way out of it. Doctors said I wouldn’t walk again — what if I listened to them? What if I allowed the science to create my reality? What if I let them make me feel that I had no choice but to accept the reality they handed to me?

“Or, rather, you do have a choice — you can always die. As Sartre said: “Exits are everywhere.” But you don’t want to die, so you discover that you have no choice except to find a new way to live. Which seems next to impossible, but somehow, if you fight hard enough, isn’t. Because you know what else is everywhere? ENTRANCES. The task then becomes to find your entrance — to fight your way through the tunnel, into the dim hope of your own light. ”

The doctors — the science — doubted my ability to find an entrance back into the light. They doubted my commitment, my discipline, and my consistency. Within six months, I launched a new company that generated more revenue in the first ten weeks of operation than I had in a year with my previous business. Within 18 months, I ran seven miles on the treadmill. In three years, I am now beyond the place I was before the accident — emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically. I am on a trajectory that wasn’t accessible without moving through the adversity.

All I can say to those doctors and to the science that doubted me is, “Doubt me now.”

I am blessed for the resilient grit bestowed upon me from the opportunity to rebuild my life from scratch — brick by brick. I now know that anything is possible and I have the power to make my dreams come true.

I am human. Human just like you. Anything you imagine you can bring into existence. If I can bring myself through the adversity I know that you can as well.

Here are a few tools and insights I’ve learned that help me find my entrances into the light with the commitment to get started, the discipline to show up everyday, and the consistency to finish.

Vibrational Frequency vs Materialism

It’s not about attracting the material representation of love and peace into your life. It’s about radiating the vibrational frequency of love and peace first.

If you focus on the material item as the driving force, when the thing enters your life it becomes difficult to keep it because your vibrational frequency is not aligned with the thing. People who win the lottery often lose all the money. When you find a lover that you click with it’s hard to keep the relationship. Children of wealth have a hard time feeling into fulfillment and happiness because when things have gotten hard — when they faced a defining moment that would trigger their adaptation response — they’ve had a safety net to protect them from the discomfort.

This type of existence brings with it a sense of disconnect and misalignment.

To awaken to this reality is to start a process of emergence — it is to start your journey of laying the foundation, brick by brick.

Resistance

After defining goals and mapping out a plan to get there it’s now time to get to work. Often, as I sit down to start the challenging tasks associated with manifesting the future I imagine I find myself opening new browser tabs, looking at my phone, changing the music, going to the bathroom, and basically anything my mind can think of that will save me from confronting the discomfort of leaning into the edges of my comfort zone. This mechanism is built-in to the human being as a safety precaution, “This thing you’re about to do is not safe — it’s going to change you — retreat!”

Notice your past self doing everything it can to prevent you from growth — to prevent you from accessing the next level. My subconscious creeps up in these moments in the most clever ways, “I am fine just the way I am — I am going to work more on being kind to myself and not be hard on myself for not showing up for practice today…” Sure, if I had showed up for myself 10 days in a row and I want to integrate more self-care, that’s awesome.

To notice these as defining moments is to empower yourself with the ability to trigger your adaptation response.

If your goal is six months away and one of your milestones for this month is to have written 1,000 words everyday starting today, what must you do today in order to reach the milestone? Disconnect your computer from WiFi, stop consuming content, use notepad or a word processor on your computer that doesn’t require internet, and discipline your body to not move from the chair until the work is done. You are a pro. As a pro, your job is to show up to practice everyday to master and improve yourself for no one other than yourself.

Majoring in minor things

One of the greatest sources of my distraction is by hyper-focusing on the small stuff. I often do this to create chaos — to create noise — to bring my attention away from myself and away from my massive dreams so that I stay safe where I am. I will do anything to avoid doing the things that need to be done. This becomes a false world I architect around myself as protection from the unknown of the breakthrough I am on the brink of.

As these internal triggers arise, I notice them — embrace them — appreciate them — I am so fucking grateful that I found the edge of my comfort zone because on the other side of that trigger is growth. Instead of getting lost in the distraction as an avoidance mechanism, I see those uncomfortable moments as signals that tell me, “Opportunity has arrived.”

Protect your energy to get in flow

Design your day. Carve out blocks of time where you focus 100% on items that need to get done. Close the email. Put the phone on airplane mode. Focus on a single task or project that has a specific description of what done looks like. Do the work. Protect your flow by not allowing the notifications of the world to disrupt you. Plan tomorrow, today. Start today knowing what needs to get done in order to complete the month’s work that will eventually add up to you realizing the six month goal.

Don’t fit in. Be different.

It’s easy for me to get distracted by trying to fit in — be liked — to meet their standards so I feel accepted and validated. When I get stuck in this place it prevents me from leaping into the world, taking risks, and making a splash. When I look at this deeper, I see that the people I look up to the most are the people who have the courage to standalone. To standalone means I have to be willing to answer the difficult questions that only I can ask myself. What am I willing to do — what am I willing to go through — how much pressure am I willing to embrace to be the most uncommon among the uncommon?