Feeling uncomfortable?

My tummy feels funny as soon as I start thinking about the discomfort I’m referring to, the kind that is real, not the kind where you are doing something that just seems challenging for the observer, but something that makes your toes tap and your skin hot.

This can seem a bit of a conflicting angle for me to take because I often preach about creating and acting on goals from a “flow place”, where you aren’t fighting yourself and you feel able and energised.

What I am referring to, doesn’t actually contradict this, in fact it works along side it. It is being honest and grounded enough in your flow to know what real challenges you need to face and to make yourself uncomfortable out of respect and care for yourself.

This is choosing discomfort for the sake of growth. It is choosing to make your saboteurs uncomfortable, because you know that despite their best efforts to persuade you otherwise, their fears and retrospective boundaries are not actually keeping you safe, but getting in your way.

But how can you tell when it is something you should be uncomfortable about or not?

Here are the filters I use to work out whether it is a healthy boundary or wether it is something that I should challenge…

• Is the fear driving the discomfort rational?

• If yes continue…

• Is the discomfort stopping me from achieving a goal or ambition of mine?

• If no continue…

• Is the discomfort manageable in everyday life, not getting in my way of general and enjoyable activities?

• If no again, this discomfort might not need pushing…

• …but before you allow it rent free in your life, ask yourself one more question

• Do I feel my life would be more enjoyable, creative, free and lifefull without this discomfort as a boundary?

Don’t panic, you don’t have to have the definite answer now, if this feels too much to distinguish for yourself, let it brew. Notice the discomforts this week, when and where do you feel it, when and where does it actually protect you and where does it get in your way? 

An excuse to start another notes page on your phone.. exciting! Get it down, log it and you will notice more and more.

This isn’t complicated so keep it simple, once you have a few major discomforts identified that you can tell aren’t helping you feel or be yourself, we can implement conscious self-challenge.

Sound scary? Don’t panic, it’s meant to! You know deep down that this is for the better, so now you know the doubt is not there to help but to sabotage you. It isn’t scary for you, it is scary for your saboteurs, maybe your Over-thinker and your Hyper-achiever, and that is what we want. You have far more power in this position than you do sat in their comfort zone.

The Challenges you need to take are actually pretty self explanatory, you feel uncomfortable in a scenario you have identified is uncomfortable to your saboteurs and you stick it out until it gets more comfortable, or better even- comfortable.

There are three simple ways of doing this:

1. Opposite action - do the exact thing the fear is telling you not to do until you do it without fear

2. Prove it wrong with lil steps - let say you are uncomfortable crossing the road, do it with a friend, then with them on the other side, then by yourself after a ‘lil moment’

3. Prove it wrong with evidence - find external evidence to prove that the discomfort is irrational and unhelpful, mood board it, journal it, make it clear why you don’t want it holding you back de-power its theories.

The previous posts (that you can access with the button below) have all sorts of Lil tips and tricks that will help you develop your anti-saboteur tool kit. Have a look…

A Lil Challenge, here is a super simple challenge that made me uncomfortable in a good way! Give it a go…

As ever, please let me know how you are getting on, what’s tangling your mind and where are you finding more clarity. I care, a lot!