Running For Comfort

by | Jul 16, 2018 | Blog

First and foremost: thank you SO much to everyone who sent birthday wishes! This past week has been incredibly special and I’m grateful to everyone who was a part of it.

If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.

If you didn’t see on Facebook or Instagram, or hear on the podcast, July 12th was a pretty big day for yours truly and for Primal Potential.

  1. It was Primal Potential’s 4 year anniversary!
  2. Episode 500 of the podcast aired!
  3. It was my 35th birthday!
  4. I finished the first (of many) draft of my first book!

To get some serious writing done and to spend my birthday with my family, I spent the week at our family beach house in York, Maine.

We were walking along the beach in the early evening on my birthday and I saw a bunch of kids doing something that struck me in a new way.

These kids were visibly excited to be at the beach. They were so excited to get in the water and were running full speed up to the water’s edge. As soon as the first wave came at their feet, they’d shriek and run back towards dry land.

As soon as it got a little uncomfortable or unfamiliar, they turned and ran back.

Have you ever done something like that?

You’re so excited to make a change – start working out, eat clean, lose weight, pay down debt – and you start charging forward. Then, it gets uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s uncomfortable because you’re tired or under the weather. Maybe you’re emotional. Maybe you’re stressed out or facing temptation or it’s a birthday or holiday.

As soon as it gets uncomfortable or unfamiliar, you run right back to the familiarity of your comfort zone.

Here’s the rub: life begins to look a lot like that. First comes enthusiasm or determination. Next comes forward progress. Inevitably, you run into the unknown, difficulty or temptation. At that point, you have a choice.

Will you charge forward into what is uncomfortable and unfamiliar or will you run away, more interested in the comfort of the familiar?

You’ve heard me mention Ben Bergeron before – he’s an elite CrossFit coach and the owner of the gym I moved to Natick for. He has a company called CompTrain that writes workouts for high level athletes. (Episode 369 of the podcast was a review of his book, Chasing Excellence.) The other day, CompTrain posted something powerful.

“What does improving feel like? It has a telltale emotional flavor: struggle. In order to improve, we have to stretch ourselves beyond our current abilities. We have to, by definition, reach and fail, then do it over and over again. You can fear the struggle, or you can embrace it for what it means: growth.”

Friend, you don’t have to be an athlete to grow from this message.

When things get uncomfortable, like it does for those kids who feel the cold water rush over their feet, you have two options: turn and run for comfort, or press on for progress.

Which will you choose?

Love you! Here’s to the next 500 episodes and another amazing day to become better versions of ourselves.

The Primal Potential Podcast

Download a free chapter from Chasing Cupcakes.

Enter your first name and email below and I'll send over chapter nine from my best-selling book. 

Thanks! Check your inbox.