This post somewhat related to the last one…
When can I tell “I’m ready to take on more” – ‘more’ meaning “should I go back to school, get a job?” Take a leap?
For me that translated into: “Am I well enough to handle it?"
In fact, the question boiled down to: Am I ‘willing’ to bear the discomfort of something new, even when I don’t know what it will be like? Am I ‘willing’ to go ‘through’ the discomfort?
Deciding “I am ready” is a very personal decision, one we can’t ever make for someone else. We can encourage the person. We can tell them we think they’re doing well, well enough to ‘make it’. We can cheer them on from the sidelines.
We can remind them that the same mental fitness tools that got them to this point, will carry them through whatever they choose. It’s always the individual’s own decision, and from personal experience I know -the more firm the decision, the better.
For me when I really, really, really, really did take the ceiling off the amount of discomfort I was willing to bear, life got easier. Easier? Yes, in the sense that I wasn’t always afraid there was there’s some kind of discomfort lurking around the corner.
Does that mean there was no discomfort? That it suddenly and totally disappeared? Heavens no. It didn’t totally disappear at first, but it did diminish. The intensity was not as great. The duration of the symptoms/discomfort was lessened.
For me and thousands of others too over the last 70+ years, no longer fearing discomfort, brought comfort.
Not waiting until we felt comfortable, but doing the things we feared or cared not to do (sometimes over, and over and over again) eventually brought the comfort.
Deliberate practice brought comfort, plus many, many gains.
In a very real sense, it brought us back to Life.
A good, average Life.
© 2010 Rose VanSickle ~ All rights reserved
