I spent part of July glued to the World Athletics Championships. It features best-in-class athletes running, jumping and throwing for their country. With multiple world records broken, we couldn’t help but wonder how athletes can break boundaries and reach new heights. I am not a professional athlete, but I am a marathon runner and believe that embracing discomfort as a source of growth is key to my success. If you want a perfect example, check out the infamous running he workout “The Michigan.”

Why do you show up for practice that day? The answer is likely that these athletes have embraced the physical discomfort of training as fuel for success. Putting stress on your body allows it to rebuild stronger.

We also face intense competition and discomfort on the workplace stage. I don’t know about you, but the pressure to constantly innovate and execute, combined with the constant stream of competing priorities, feels like a never-ending challenge. arises and, of course, prevents everyone from moving forward. But what if you could use these obstacles as fuel for success?

That’s because, according to new research, embracing the challenge and embracing the necessary discomfort may be the key to pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and reaching your optimal performance level.

power of discomfort

In the July issue of Nature, Researchers examined the effects of simple cognitive interventions on participants’ ability to face future challenges. Designed as a 30-minute online self-directed learning program, the growth mindset, which is the idea that skills can be improved over time, and the idea that stress can be increased, or our physiological stress response, can improve performance.

After the intervention, participants not only had lower physiological measures of stress and anxiety, such as cortisol levels, but also improved self-reported well-being and cognitive performance, including improved learning rates and performance, especially when tested on the face. It also showed improvement of the new stressors. Surprisingly, the performance impact was long-lasting and still present after 6 months. Moreover, the results were the greatest with a synergistic approach. Such consequences only surfaced if participants accepted both the idea that the task could lead to self-improvement and the understanding that discomfort could be an integral part of the task. did.

The Science of Mindset Synergy

Underlying here is the power of the mindset, or cognitive processes that function generally rather than contextually. Mindsets, as opposed to building skills for specific challenges, can hinder our improvement in situations that are completely new or unpredictable, such as the ever-changing work-life pandemic-related experience. Be prepared for a variety of stressors.

For mindset synergy, you must first have a growth mindset. But the secret ingredient may lie in the physiological reactions that occur when faced with new challenges. It is an uncomfortable feeling of anxiety or tension that can make your palms sweat or your stomach burrow. But focusing on this experience can help us succeed through the lens of thinking that stress can increase. changed from “These emotions are useless and uncontrollable” to “These emotions are helping me get the fuel I need to tackle this challenge.” This shift led participants to choose to use the experience, turning it into fuel rather than a worry or distraction.

Here, participants demonstrated the benefits of a combined approach for best long-term outcomes. Because this approach included challenge along with physiological feelings of challenge, a combination of mindsets was shown to reduce the negative effects of avoidance, leading to positive states that boost productivity and growth.

The neural underpinnings may lie in a push-pull relationship between the limbic brain regions involved when faced with threat and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and peripheral regions involved when concentrating . Similar to the benefits gained when using emotion regulation techniques, these mindset shifts allow him to reuse his PFC when faced with new challenges and quickly regain cognitive control of the task. This goes from “I’m not good at this job” to “I’m not good at this job. yet” Try this and notice how suddenly the task stops feeling difficult.

Another technique is to re-evaluate the unpleasant experience as follows: pain to me”, “this challenge help myself. “Finally, it can be helpful to get an outside perspective to support this shift in mindset. Remind yourself that discomfort and uncertainty about outcomes is normal as you approach the boundaries of your comfort.” .

So the next time you’re faced with a job or role you’ve never tried before, when familiar knots start forming in your stomach, go ahead and embrace it. It’s a driving force for improvement. Because it may be time to step outside our comfort zones and break our own records.

Dr. Emma Sarro is a researcher at the NeuroLeadership Institute.