‘If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking’
– Buddhist Proverb
The Importance of Consistency To develop our mental strength we need to be consistently outside our comfort zone. Mental strength, like physical strength, is reversible. By reversible I mean that just as it is possible to become mentally stronger, it is also possible to become mentally weaker. If we return to the comfort zone and stay there, over time we will get mentally weaker. In fact, the further we retreat into the comfort zone, the weaker we will become.
The temptation to return to the comfort zone is always there.
After all, the comfort zone is pretty comfortable! However, the comfort zone has the ability to weaken us and reduce our potential. It’s not a place we should dwell in for any length of time.
As a full-time writer, a job that I really love, there are days when I momentarily long for the time when I had a day job.
All I had to do was turn up, do my bit and I’d collect my pay at the end of the month. However, I found my old job dull and unfulfilling compared to the excitement and satisfaction of doing something I have a real passion for. To advance my career as a writer, I constantly have to move outside my comfort zone into my zone of development. Being in the zone of development is not comfortable, and, in my weaker moments, I occasionally long for a bit of comfort. My old job, although very unfulfilling, was placed smack bang in the middle of my comfort zone and afforded comfort aplenty. In these weaker moments, I need to flex my mental strength and remind myself that the easy life is hugely unfulfilling, and being in the zone of development, although inevitably challenging and at times uncomfortable, is very satisfying, hugely rewarding and generally a lot of fun!
The comfort zone is comfortable and the zone of development is not. That is why we all get tempted to remain in, or return to, the comfort zone. When this happens, we need to flex our mental strength and then drive ourselves forwards once again.
There is never any advancement without facing up to challenges and dealing with discomfort. It is for this reason that the vast majority of people never fulfil their dreams or achieve their goals. They want the success, but they avoid challenges and the very notion of discomfort. Far from avoiding challenges and discomfort, we need to actively seek them out if we are to develop ourselves and achieve our goals. The right level of discomfort is good for us. And whilst it may seem like a paradox to some, comfort is actually bad for us! There is no quick fix. Only consistently being in the zone of development will bring true advancement. There is no other easier way.
Whatever your goals and ambitions, you can be sure you are making real progress if you feel challenged on a consistent basis.
Whenever things are plain sailing then you can be equally assured that you’re not where you need to be. Nor are you doing the things you need to do in order to progress.
Whenever I’m practising the martial arts, it has to be a challenge and it has to involve some degree of discomfort. If the training session doesn’t stretch me to my limits, then I’m unlikely to gain from it. If I have a few easy sessions in a row, my skills, my physical fitness and my mental resolve will all start to deteriorate. It is only through consistently exposing myself to challenging training that I’ll be able to advance. It is the same with any other endeavour. To make progress we need to overload ourselves and we need to do it consistently.
Having emphasised the need to overload ourselves on a regular basis, the next statement may seem contradictory (it isn’t): To ensure we progress quickly and safely, we also need to rest! It may seem like I’m contradicting myself here, but you do need to ensure you have a balance between overload and recuperation. Consistently being in the zone of development does not mean we should spend every waking moment in pursuit of our goals.
The Importance of Consistency To help clear up any apparent contradiction, imagine a weightlifter that spends hours in the gym every single day. He’s lifting the right amount of weight (in his zone of development) and no one can say he’s not being consistent! However, he’s not resting. Sooner or later he’s going to run out of energy. His muscles won’t have time to recover from training before he’s training again! Our weightlifter is chronically overtraining.
In order to achieve your goals, you’ll need plenty of energy;
and as you progress towards those goals, you’ll expend that energy. So you need to take a productive rest every now and again in order to restore your energy levels and continue to make worthwhile progress.
A productive rest is not to be confused with returning to the comfort zone. In our weaker moments it is possible to confuse the two, either intentionally or unintentionally. A desire to return to the comfort zone is based upon an unwillingness to endure the discomfort and challenges that always accompany progress. A productive rest is a momentary respite from the stresses of the zone of development so that we can replenish our energy and get right back into the zone of development with maximum effect!
In military terms, a return to the comfort zone is to surrender.
A productive rest is a tactical retreat preceding a strong forward push. A productive rest is a very positive activity that is a vital part of the developmental process. Certainly we don’t want to spend too much time away from the zone of development or we will weaken and we lose the opportunity to make progress.
However, we also don’t want to push ourselves so hard that we drain all our energy, as that will also weaken us.
When I’m writing, I find I reach a point, normally after a couple of hours, where to continue writing would be counterproductive. My energy starts to wane and the quality of my writing falls as a result. When I reach this point, I take a productive rest. I go for a quick walk, have something to eat,
run a few errands, even watch a bit of TV, anything that gives me a little break from writing for half an hour or so. I can then return to my writing with more energy and renewed enthusiasm.
If I’ve been working hard for a few days, I sometimes find myself at my desk feeling tired and with little enthusiasm to write or progress my business. That’s a sign that I need a productive rest. Sometimes that rest will take the form of playing a few games with my children. Sometimes I’ll go and read a book. Sometimes I’ll do a bit of extra training, and sometimes I’ll go to bed and sleep for an hour or two! The change in activity allows me to recharge my batteries and make strong progress upon returning to the task at hand.
Any experienced athlete knows that they need to consistently push their boundaries if they are to become physically stronger and enhance their physical skills. However, they also know the value of rest. In order to push their limits, they need maximum energy. The only way to gain that energy is through sufficient rest.
It isn’t wise to wait until you’re burnt out until you decide that you need to rest. What you should do is plan your advancement so that your productive rests are a built-in part of the process. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a little time off so long as you’re doing so for positive reasons.
Productive rests are a vital part of the developmental process and should never be confused with laziness! That said, you should also never try to justify laziness by trying to convince yourself and others that you’re just resting.
To make meaningful progress we need to be in the zone of development on a consistent basis. In order to make that possible, we need to ensure we get enough rest. The instant our energy levels are restored, we need to get back into the zone of development and use that energy to progress ourselves towards our goals.
The Importance of Consistency Being in the zone of development is hard work. However, there may also be other reasons that can cause us to be inconsistent with our efforts to develop. These reasons for inconsistency – which aren’t valid reasons at all – can include things like boredom, a lack of progress, self-doubt gaining a foothold etc. We’ll discuss these prompts to inconsistency in more detail as we progress through this book. However, for now, the key thing to understand is that to make meaningful progress we need to be consistent in our efforts. We will take productive rests to make sure we have maximum energy, but we won’t reside in the comfort zone, nor will we try to justify inconsistent effort.
As we covered earlier, the main reason that most people are inconsistent in their efforts is that the zone of development is an uncomfortable place to be. However, as we’ll discuss in the next chapter, discomfort is very necessary for our growth.
O
ne of the recurring themes in the preceding chapters is the necessity of discomfort. Without a resistance to overcome, we have no way of getting stronger. The process of leaving our comfort zone behind and moving into the zone of development invariably means that mental resistance will be present. The presence of mental resistance, and the overcoming of mental resistance, is always uncomfortable. Because we need to overcome mental resistance in order to make any kind of progress, we can therefore see that progress is always accompanied by discomfort.For some readers, that may be unwelcome news as the vast majority of people want discomfort-free progress.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing. If there is no discomfort, then there is no progress. However, the idea of discomfort-free progress is an alluring one.
I have a few questions for you. Do you know anyone who has a washboard stomach who trains for five minutes a day?
Nope, me neither. Anyone I know who has that level of physical development got there through regular intense physical activity and a very strict diet. But that does not stop innumerable advertisements that promise to make you into the next Mr Universe or give you the figure of a top model in only a few