Tolerance for Discomfort
Expanding My Capacity for What Hurts
My brain tells me to run away.
When I tell it my intentions for 2026, my brain does what it’s supposed to do— keep me safe.
But I know that if I carry out this intention, it will take me to the next level of my life. It would open doors to the places that I get close to approaching but get too scared to walk through. Beyond that, it would bring me to the people that I want to be communing with, the ones who insist on rooting down in courage when fear comes to visit. I would in the trenches. I’d be one of them.
If I truly embody the task I’m considering, I’d know exactly what I’d need to work on and what actions I’d need to take to do that work.
My intention is to broaden my tolerance for discomfort.
Many years ago now, I made the intention to confront my fears.
You’d think this was a helpful exercise. And it was… for the moment. Anytime I was scared I would interpret it as a cue to move toward whatever it was that scared me.
But there were a few lessons that I learned from this Fear-Rushing Era:
1. All-or-Nothing Mentality: I was trying to push through my fears that led to me doing nothing by accelerating full throttle into the opposite extreme. Imagine that moment a high-speed driver in that movie swerves a 180 to face their opponent, the few seconds before they plunge forward for a determined game of “chicken” against the other driver. This is the approach I took with my fears.
That’s a great mentality in some situations, and the fall-out is brutal if I lose that game of chicken. I was using this one approach for all fear-based situations. There are more nuanced options available.
2. A Lack of Choice: Fear can be a useful feeling. Fear can give us important information and save our lives.
My problem at the time is that fear was an automatic “Do Not Proceed”. I was physically well-protected (thanks, Brain) but overwhelmingly unsatisfied with life.
So when I felt fear, I forced myself to go through with whatever scenario brought up the feeling. My goal of not letting fear rule me was reached, but I often found myself white-knuckling myself through situations. Is there a way to do it without white-knuckling it?
3. Exhaustion: Facing my fears induced a lot of adrenaline. I was so tired from that year that I decided that I didn’t want to be courageous about anything for a while. I felt pretty burnt out and took a long protective hiatus to recover.
As a result of my previous experience facing my fears, I’m putting an emphasis on the word tolerance instead of on discomfort.
If I focus on my tolerance, what I am doing is gradually growing my capacity for harder and harder situations. I get to decide the pace and the amount of exposure. I can take a more measured and thoughtful approach.
I want to get over the idea of coercing myself into doing things. Growing up, I often didn’t get a choice and this mentality carries over into my tactics as an adult. If I have to do it, I can try to rush through it hard and fast so I feel less pain.
By working on my tolerance, I take this to mean that I am mindfully feeling the discomfort that it causes. I’m not trying to understand it better. I’m understanding better how it makes me feel. I focus on the pause. I acknowledge fear, watch it arise, crest, and then disband—a practice I repeated quite a lot in grad school.
I don’t move forward in spite of fear. I move forward and allow fear to come along with me.
My brain still wants to run away even after making this quite logical case. It’s just doing its job.
This intention doesn’t mean I’m entirely comfortable all the time. It means that the biggest areas of growth in my life come from the moments where I choose protection over progress.
But I get to decide what we do, and what “we” (that’s me and me) want in the Bigger Picture of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is Self-actualization.
This is the next part of my journey to that horizon.
Join me?
I’ll talk more about how I’m implementing my intentions and what areas of my life will be most affected by my actions in the next installment.
Wow, I feel my tolerance for discomfort broadening by the very idea that I will document it…
So there it is. Tolerance. My word for 2026.
What are your intentions for 2026?