Struggling with a New Task? Good. Productive Discomfort Will Help You Master It.

Sometimes, things are hard simply because they’re hard, even if we are doing them right. 

But here’s the secret: when something is hard and causing you a low level of stress, it can be a worthwhile path to personal improvement. It’s a state I call productive discomfort. 

You likely felt productive discomfort learning to drive. You first focused on inserting and turning the key, learning the pedals, and adjusting the seat and mirrors. Once you’d mastered that, you carefully practiced in a large parking lot, a rural field, or a very quiet neighborhood street. You didn’t navigate the on-ramp to the interstate that first day. If you had, you might never sit behind the wheel again. Each small step was uncomfortable enough to keep you focused without paralyzing you with fear. 

As I’ll explain, this state of productive discomfort is the sweet spot for improving your skills and moving forward. To make major strides in self-improvement, you need to find your productive discomfort zone and build from there.

When I work with executive coaching clients, I encourage them to practice new behaviors. As we talk about where to start, we look for areas of productive discomfort, places to practice new things and be uncomfortable enough to pay attention but not be overwhelmed.

Those situations vary by person and work environment. For example, Mark is a client who struggled with saying no. He’s an affable guy who wants to please, a quality made infinitely more dangerous by his love for a shiny new idea. 

A dreamer and a pleaser, Mark never met a project he didn’t greenlight. His team was drowning in the work he’d agreed to on their behalf. Resentment was building, and Mark realized he needed to learn how to say no.

Mark was so uncomfortable with looking someone in the eye and saying no that he couldn’t imagine doing it at work. The very idea made his skin crawl. So, Mark began practicing saying no at home. 

He told his wife and family he was going to start practicing something new. Sometimes, when they made a request of him, he planned to respond with a simple “no.” He continued with a gradual process of getting used to the discomfort of saying no. 

Mark started very small because his discomfort with the task was so big. He could never have said no to a peer at work without practicing first at home, because that would’ve been way outside his productive discomfort zone.

If you focus on productive discomfort, a hard task will remain hard even while you’re improving. You start small and build. You may always be a little bit uncomfortable. It may always feel difficult and challenging. But you’re making progress, and if you look back, you’ll see how far you’ve come.

The critical component of productive discomfort is practice. You need to practice your chosen skill, whether it’s saying no, speaking in public, writing proposals, or any other task you find hard, and continually perform the task until you improve, all while increasing the difficulty. 

It’s easy to commit to the idea of practice and harder to actually do the work. Practice can be tiring and overwhelming. You might get discouraged. Getting up and trying again when the authenticity horse bucks isn’t easy. Even if you’re getting better at it, it is still challenging.

Prepare yourself for weathering the discomfort by asking, “How might I feel when this gets hard? What can I do in anticipation of that feeling while still planning to persist through it?”

Your answers will help put you in the right mindset to conquer difficulty. You can also tangibly prepare by writing yourself a letter of encouragement to read when the process gets hard and by listing the things you now do daily that were once difficult.

If you’re a leader who is trying to inspire their team with courage and heart, it’s going to feel hard because it is hard. Or maybe you’re a student—math will always seem hard. The takeaway is that a task being hard is okay, even good, because it means you’re improving. It gives you a baseline to push against and move beyond as you advance your skills.

As you do the hard work and put in the hours, remember that the discomfort is your path to continuous, gradual improvement. It may not feel like you’re improving in the midst of practice, but when you look back at where you started, you’ll see and celebrate how far you’ve come. 

For more advice on improving your professional performance, find Naked at Work on Amazon.  More coaching is available at Avenue 8 On-Demand, on the topics of The Power of Story, Speech Acts:Why Candor Builds Trust, and more.

Danessa Knaupp is an executive coach, CEO, and keynote speaker, shifting the global conversation on leadership. She has coached hundreds of executives across every major industry and has developed a reputation as a candid, compassionate and courageous leadership partner. She is the author of the leadership manual, Naked at Work: A Leader’s Guide to Fearless Authenticity. She regularly addresses C-suite audiences on how to harness the power of real authenticity (not #authenticity) to drive measurable business results. Danessa earned her executive coaching credentials from Georgetown University, is credentialed by the International Coach Federation, and holds a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from the College of William and Mary. She spent more than 20 years as an entrepreneur and a senior executive, and ultimately, CEO, before founding her coaching practice. Connect with her at danessaknaupp.com.