3432: To the Pain by Steve Pavlina on Personal Growth

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Health Daily. To the Pain by Steve Pavlina of stevepavlina.com. And I'm Dr. Neal Malik, your very own personal narrator. Happy Monday and welcome back to another week of Optimal Health Daily. This is where I read to you from some of the best health and fitness blogs on the web. Kind of like an ongoing audiobook and always with a bit of my commentary at the end. And with that, I'm going to keep this intro nice and short. So let's get right to today's article. As we optimize your life.

[00:01:03] To the Pain by Steve Pavlina of stevepavlina.com. When I was learning Taekwondo, I had to work extra hard to improve my flexibility. Most of the other students seemed to have an easier time than I did. It took me months to reach the level of flexibility that they had when they started as white belts.

[00:01:24] Eventually, I could do roundhouse kicks to the head no problem. Then, I reached the point where I could kick way above my head, but it took a lot of extra stretching time to get there. As I reached the higher belt ranks after a few years of consistent training, there was a flexibility requirement to test for the next belt level. I think it was doing side splits down to 6 inches and front splits down to 2 inches.

[00:01:50] At the time, I was about 4 inches too high on both. I kept working on the stretching, but I plateaued and didn't seem to be getting any closer. When I asked the instructor how to progress beyond this point, he suggested that I talk to one of the black belts who struggled with flexibility too and was eventually able to pass the test. So, I talked to him right away. We already knew each other and he readily agreed to help me.

[00:02:15] He invited me to stay after class for an extra 10-15 minutes and work on stretching together. He told me to bring a couple of plastic grocery bags to the next class, which sounded odd. I brought the bags and after class, he had me put them on my feet. The studio had a padded canvas floor, so my plastic-covered bare feet could slide across the floor with minimal friction.

[00:02:40] Just doing the splits with the bags helped me sink a bit lower, and so I figured that was the method. But actually, that was only the first step. After I did a few rounds of breathing into the stretch and worked myself down as low as I could go, he pushed down on my hips to sink even lower, which was really painful. Now and then, he'd tell me to take another deep breath, and as I exhaled,

[00:03:04] he'd increase the force to nudge my hips towards the floor, and my feet would slide farther apart due to the plastic bags, basically while I screamed. He told me that if it was really too much, that I could tap out, but otherwise, screaming was fine. It was painful, but effective. Within several weeks, I was able to meet the testing qualification on my own. While some students could already do the splits down to the floor when they first walked into the studio,

[00:03:34] I always had to work extra hard at flexibility. Other than the black belt who helped me, I never knew of anyone else in our studio needing to put plastic bags on their feet and have someone push down on their hips to keep improving. Many students were already able to satisfy the flexibility requirement well before they needed to qualify, just from the normal course of training at the studio. In other aspects of Taekwondo, I was doing great. I especially loved sparring.

[00:04:04] But on the flexibility aspect, I was the slow one who needed remedial help. Bottom 5% of the class for sure. What made it easier was that I didn't need to wrap the problem into my self-esteem. So my body wasn't very flexible. That didn't mean that I had to think less of myself. It was just a problem to be dealt with and solved. I find this framing helpful in many areas of life, including mental and emotional challenges.

[00:04:31] Just because I'm struggling in certain areas doesn't mean that I have to wrap the problem into my self-image. I can still think well of myself while dealing with various challenges, since it doesn't help to do otherwise. It's good to admit the truth, though, such as when help is needed to solve a particular problem. I wouldn't have figured out the plastic bag solution on my own. The solution seemed a bit extreme. Perhaps there was a better approach. But I didn't know of one at the time,

[00:05:00] and the extreme solution worked. It was painful, but it didn't injure me. If I had known earlier that the basic solution was to accept more pain, I probably could have gotten there on my own at a more gradual pacing just by using the plastic bags. Having someone push down on my hips was needed to go faster, so I could meet the qualification in time for the next testing. But if I was willing to progress more slowly, I think the bags would have been enough on their own.

[00:05:30] Consider what problems in your life you could solve if you're willing to endure more discomfort or pain to cross the finish line. Perhaps a little extra pain spread out over time would work. Or perhaps a lot of pain over a short period of time would do it. The pain doesn't have to be physical. It could be emotional or psychological as well. Maybe you struggle to progress beyond a certain point because further progress requires crossing the pain line. How can you leave the misaligned job,

[00:06:00] face the inevitable breakup, or fix your habits unless you're willing to take on more pain, at least temporarily? Your personal pain line isn't fixed. It's flexible. In order to improve my physical flexibility, I had to stretch my mind as well. I had to replace my old mental rules with more flexible ones so I could finally cross the pain line instead of automatically ruling that out as a potential solution.

[00:06:27] What are the lines you seldom cross when seeking solutions? Consider that your unwillingness to cross those lines may be the very thing that's causing you to plateau. What if the solution is to cross one of your pain lines? You just listened to the post titled To The Pain by Steve Pavlina of stevepavlina.com And I'll be right back with my commentary. When summer rolls around,

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[00:08:53] and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Dr. Neal Malik here for my commentary. So often we tend to repeat the activities we're good at and stop there. Trust me, I'm guilty of this. We'll only perform those tasks or those exercises that tend to come easy to us and stop there.

[00:09:23] Now, I hate running. I used to tell people I'm just not built to be a good runner and this is coming from someone that played soccer for nine years. Even so, whenever we had to run a mile for time in gym class, I could never run the entire thing. I always had to stop and walk part of the way because I was so fatigued. So, I came to the conclusion that I was born a poor runner and that's how it will always be. But as I started getting more serious about my training after college,

[00:09:53] I started focusing more of my attention on this very weak spot. At first, it did not go well at all. I still couldn't run more than one lap around a track without feeling completely winded. But, I set small goals like just run for three minutes and see how far you can get. Then, the following week, just run for four minutes and see how far you can get. And so on. I focused my attention on this weak spot and set a goal of running just one mile

[00:10:22] without stopping to walk. Over time, I've improved on this so-called weakness. I used the same technique when I couldn't perform a single pull-up. I would just say, okay, try and get one pull-up in today. That's it. So tomorrow, we'll do the same thing. Just get in one pull-up. Once I was able to perform a perfect pull-up, that was a win in itself. But the next goal, just get in two pull-ups. Now, over time, I've improved

[00:10:52] on these so-called weaknesses. So, that now, if I use the running example, running a mile is often just a warm-up before my real workout. Now, this is not meant to be a humble brag, I promise. But rather, I'm just repeating today's author, Steve Pavlina's words. Your pain line, your threshold, isn't fixed. It's flexible. Oh, and when it comes to pull-ups, not a humble brag, I promise, but now I can do 25 without stopping.

[00:11:22] Alright, that'll do it for the Monday episode. I hope you have a great start to your week, and I'll be back here tomorrow, as usual, where your optimal life awaits.