It’s possible, instead, to make a game of gradually increasing your capacity for discomfort, like weight training at the gym. When you expect that an action will be accompanied by feelings of irritability, anxiety or boredom, it’s usually possible to let that feeling arise and fade, while doing the action anyway. The rewards come so quickly, in... See more

The capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower . It’s shocking to realise how readily we set aside even our greatest ambitions in life, merely to avoid easily tolerable levels of unpleasantness. You already know it won’t kill you to endure the mild agitation of getting back to work on an important creative project; initiating a difficult... See more

When we use a soft front and strong back to stay with the discomfort of difficult emotions, they tend to arise, do their little dance, then move on. We don’t have to be knocked down by them. We don’t have to shut down in a zombie-like state of burnout to avoid feeling them. By changing the way we relate to difficult emotions, we can get through... See more

A few rare individuals refuse to live limited lives. They drive through tremendous amounts of pain—from rejections and failures to shorter moments of embarrassment and anxiety. They also handle the small, tedious pain required for personal discipline, forcing themselves to do things we all know we should do but don’t—like exercising, eating right,

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