69 Turning Towards Discomfort Courage Series 1

You are listening to the Great Leader Great Mom podcast, episode 69. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, founder of the School of Courage. I'm an engineer, turn life coach, because I saw the need for more courage in my own life as a mom and wanting to be a great leader. I use the skills we cover every day in my own life and I'm excited to teach them to you so you can unlock my potential. Well welcome to this new series. This is a series all about courage. And looking at all the things we're taught growing up and that we need to unlearn, especially in midlife, about success and happiness and even money. There's this point in midlife where so many of us realize that the A's, the accolades, the constant striving, it didn't give us the life we thought it would. We are going to talk about what are the truths that we actually replace these misconceptions and myths with and how to get the freedom How to be courageous, how to find joy by unraveling all of these myths we learned growing up. We'll talk about perfectionism, we'll talk about money, self-worth, decision-making, and the power of discomfort This episode is all about discomfort and it's probably one of my favorite concepts that completely transformed my own life How many of you are stuck in these safe routines? You're avoiding risk, you're staying comfortable, you're feeling like your whole life has been designed. to solve for things to be easier, to not feel pain or discomfort. And when you get that, you feel like, yes, I think I've arrived. But under the surface, you're actually really unfulfilled and burned out. We are going to dive into what it means to lean into discomfort, to turn towards your fears and to step towards your dreams with energy and joy, and the amount of courage this requires. I think we forget how much courage is required to lean into discomfort. And one of the reasons why this is on my mind is because my sixth grader started at a new area of the campus. And so it's a whole new building. They even have probably 40% new kids in sixth grade for a class that's been pretty tight together over elementary school And what has been so cool is to see these moments where she's doing cross-country and in the beginning she I didn't know where to drop her off and I would just pick a spot and drop her and then she'd have to go find where to go And this happened when it rained, because she had to figure out, well, apparently we're not going to the cra track. Where do I go from here? And their schedule is so much more complicated with like Six plus classes and may have like a rolling different class every eight days, which is very confusing as evidenced by how many times I got lost just in the parent night trying to figure out where to go and meet the different teachers. What has been so cool is how I have dropped her off and I have um given her whatever information I have for things and seen her figure whatever it is out to go from being really uncomfortable to being courageous to asking people for help to asking not just teachers, but other students what to do and where to go. And at the end of the day, when I pick her up, she is just like boiling over with confidence and empowerment and it's really cool to see. And so I've been thinking about how do we do this for ourselves as adults? Our whole early life, we're taught that if we do all the right things, we will live a comfortable, happy life And I think we almost equate adulthood with comfort. Like you make your life so easy, you don't experience discomfort. You know, if you're doing it right, life should be very comfortable and easy. And we're so judgy of others and look at them like they're doing it wrong if they're experiencing any kind of pain or not living the life of luxurious ease and comfort like you think you should and that you think everyone else should if they were following all the rules and properly living. And so we judge them and we think they're doing it wrong. But how many people do you know that have the dream job, that have the house, that have the millions, that have the husband, or the wife, or the ideal body and weight, they have the kids and all the things that should quote unquote make you happy And yet they're miserable. And what if there is more joy and more growth and more passion on the other side of discomfort What if we're uncomfortable either way and one comfort leads you towards your dreams and towards your capability and your potential? And if the other discomfort just leaves you stuck. I think that discomfort is the price we pay for our dreams. And are you willing to embrace that discomfort if you knew that discomfort was just a feeling and you could just hold space for it and it all would be okay. We avoid discomfort because we're worried to some extent that it'll kind of kill us, that we won't be able to survive. that the negative feeling will be overwhelming versus realizing that one it's a feeling and you can just let it be and vibrate in your body and not resist it and not work it out on others and not eat it or drink it or nub it away And I believe that discomfort is the currency of our dreams. And I want to be like my sixth grader and bring on the discomfort so that I can end my day feeling more courageous and confident. to take on whatever life sets before me. And for her, she's being put in a place of discomfort unintentionally, right? Like she wouldn't choose that. It's just the nature of starting in a new grade in a new building But as adults, we need to consciously choose more discomfort that gets us to where we want to go. I want this reminder for myself and I want it for you. I've come to believe that we can figure it out, whatever life brings at us, just like my sixth grader in figuring out all of these little challenges every day, and know that being a mom or being a dad is tough and so often we feel like it's overwhelming and overpowering for us. But if you knew that you could just hold space for that discomfort within you And that you can show up with love for your kids, that nothing has gone wrong. You're not supposed to feel comfortable all the time. Especially, I would say, of parenting, which is way more challenging than I ever expected. Um anytime we hold up this idle version of parenting or any aspect of life and we look at the uh Anytime we hold up our expectation of, say, parenting or how we thought life would pan out versus the reality, we're usually very disappointed and mad at ourselves. And think that something has gone very wrong. Knowing that that fairy tale version, that fairy tale outcome doesn't actually exist, but that life is always gonna be a little bit uncomfortable. Are you gonna sit in the discomfort and stay stuck? Are you gonna lean into the discomfort with courage and figure it out, whatever it is that life brings at you to get to your dreams, to get to the next level of what you're capable of? So let's look around and challenge ourselves and find ways to lean into some discomfort. Not the ones that we just accidentally run into. Those will always be there. but to find things that we can do intentionally to feel discomfort. And I call these a dare of the day. By training ourselves to take on a dare of the day and hold space for the discomfort and know that we're not only going to be okay, but that We'll feel more confident afterward. That's the point. So here's some examples of a dare of the day. Maybe you asked somebody their name they forgot. That's uncomfortable, right? Maybe you ask somebody to go have coffee with you that you don't know. You ask for help. You say no. You post something on social media or share it with someone. You lean into a tough conversation. Maybe you give a presentation which you really are afraid of. Maybe you ask a question in a meeting and say you don't understand. Maybe you own a mistake that you've made and you just let someone be right. Think of the times when a family member or someone you know will maybe criticize you and judge you and you just let them be right. Like, you know, you're right. That was really harsh. And you own it and say, I'm sorry, those are moments that are very uncomfortable. Maybe you decide to apply for a job that's really in your own mind out of your league. Maybe you want to sit down and have a different kind of conversation with your children. Find a dare of the day, something that makes you uncomfortable, and start practicing it. We're never gonna get good at something just by reading about it or by watching other people do it. We need to lean in and do it ourselves. Nobody ever learned to ride a unicycle by reading and watching YouTube videos. You're gonna learn by getting on the dumb unicycle and crashing a lot until you feel what it is like to ride the unicycle, I of which have no idea. That just seemed like a good analogy. And know that in this process of trying on discomfort, things are gonna go wrong and you're gonna fail and you're gonna not have things go great and feel really embarrassed. But any negative emotion you can hold space for. So I would love to hear your dares of the day. I've had some really good ones and you'll hear about them in the newsletter. With that, everybody have an amazing week and I'll see you guys next time