Pain is Unavoidable, but it Serves a Purpose
Brady Ross, MA, PCC
Leadership Coach, Speaker, and Trainer | President and Founder of Clear Path Leadership
Today, we’re going to dig deep into a topic that most of us would rather avoid: pain.?
We don’t like to think about pain, and we certainly don’t enjoy feeling pain. However, this doesn’t change the fact that pain is a natural - and unavoidable - part of life.?
More importantly, there’s something we can gain from the pain we experience - but only if we choose to experience the right type of pain. Pain might be uncomfortable, but in many cases, it can be quite useful.
For many years, people have summarized motivation as the desire to move toward pleasure or away from pain. Despite the context in which it’s often used, motivation is neither positive nor negative: it’s simply the reason why we do what we do. Motivation is present whether we’re choosing to go for a run, sit on the couch, read a book, or flip through our phone.
Recently, discussions have further focused on the escape from pain as the primary driving force behind human behavior. Translation: everything we do is done in an attempt to avoid discomfort.
As someone who identifies as an optimist, I don’t love this perspective, but it doesn’t take away from its truth or relevance. The fact of the matter is that pain is always present, and avoiding the experience of pain is virtually impossible in every domain of life.
Knowing this, we should be less focused on avoiding pain and more focused on avoiding the wrong kind of pain.?
The best kind of pain is the pain that serves a purpose. Pain, like any emotion, carries a message, but we can choose how we respond to that message. If we interpret the message correctly and choose the proper response, we can make the pain work for us rather than against us.?
In my book “Motivation for Regular People: Reframing Your Drive to Pursue Your Goals and Achieve Your Potential,” I wrote that every decision in life has both a cost and a reward. Most of our internal decision dilemmas in life come when we are forced to choose between a short-term reward with a long-term cost and a long-term reward with a short-term cost.?
Long-term rewards are often better, but we involuntarily gravitate toward short-term rewards because we’re able to postpone the pain until later. It’s the reason why most people would rather eat a donut today, even though they know it will make their fitness goals more challenging to reach. It’s why we avoid difficult conversations even when we know that the situation could worsen as a result of our lack of attention.?
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Our brains perceive any outcome that’s further in the future as uncertain and will push us to maintain a short-term state of comfort and safety rather than doing the hard thing that could result in a better tomorrow. This correlates with pain because it reminds us that either decision - whether we opt for the short-term prize or the long-term payoff - comes with some form of pain. The difference isn’t whether or not pain is present, but instead when we experience the pain and what message the pain sends us.?
The short-term pain is a reminder of the greater reward that we are pursuing, while the long-term pain stirs up feelings of guilt and regret that are corrective at best and self-defeating at worst. As Craig Groeschel once said on his podcast (“The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast”), we can have the pain of discipline or we can have the pain of regret.
This perspective better informs how we can help somebody move past a victim mentality and move toward a place of action. When somebody is experiencing pain, it’s important that we don’t make light of this pain. We want to show up with empathy, both because it affirms the value of the person and because it provides an opportunity for the relationship to grow. I’m always amazed at how helpful presence can be in the midst of pain - whether I’m the one suffering or if I’m meeting someone who is.
Once the person feels heard and valued in their pain, we can help them think about how to productively move forward. We can ask a question that I often find helpful in coaching sessions: “What can you gain from this pain?”?
This question shifts our thinking from the short-term cost to the long-term payoff. Rather than focus on what we are giving up (whether by our own choice or by no choice of our own), we identify what sort of growth or development can become possible as a result of the pain.?
In each example, we must recognize that the long-term success isn’t possible without the short-term pain. At the same time, rather than simply being an inconvenience that we would rather avoid, the pain is a tangible representation of the transformation that is happening in and around us as we gradually move toward becoming a better version of ourselves. We must remember in these moments that if we want to achieve the results that not everyone experiences, we must be willing to do the work that not everyone will do.?
If our expectation is that a good life is a life without pain, we’re always going to end up disappointed. On the other hand, if we think strategically about the type of pain we choose to move away from and the type of pain we are willing to accept, we will experience positive growth and transformation as we move toward the future we most want to experience.
Pain is inevitable, but you can make it work for you rather than against you. So, what pain will you choose?
Founding Partner at P3 Leaders
1 个月This sounds like our chess game.
Begin Within Fitness
1 个月Great message! Such a great message. One of my training groups was talking today about the difference between “pain” and “soreness” after a workout. I think those lessons from exercise translate so well into the rest of life. As you’re coaching, what’s one of the biggest pains in life you find people can change their perspective on?