Getting Comfortable with (& Learning how to DOMINATE) Discomfort ft. Christy Campbell

About today’s episode:

Today I’m talking to my friend, Christy Campbell. She’s been on the show before and we had such a great time (and great response) that I wanted to bring her back.

We talked about some different things today: we talked about Jiu-jitsu, getting uncomfortable, and how to get over the hesitancy of getting uncomfortable.

We got into a lot about how your new life is on the other side of resistance, on the other side of getting uncomfortable, and that's how you grow.

We covered how to go through and approach those periods of getting uncomfortable so you don’t take too big of a jump at once and derail yourself.

And finally, we brought this all back around to weight loss, how to get happy, and how to transform your life.

I know you’re going to get a LOT out of this episode!

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Intro

01:14 Sponsors

04:13 About today’s episode

06:11 Catching up with Christy

12:06 Getting uncomfortable

31:46 Personal Growth

45:56 Mental Wins and Overcoming

Transcript (click to expand)

Episode Synopsis:

Catching Up:

Christy is currently juggling a lot in her life. With her kid’s dad deployed overseas, she’s got her hands full taking care of their three kids, their dogs, running her business, and maintaining her hobbies—like Jiu-jitsu. With Christy’s life being more chaotic than in the past, she is learning more about how to take care of herself, her team, and her clients.

One of the ways she has dealt with the increase in competing responsibilities in her life is by letting go of the need to do things perfectly and applying that across the different areas of her life. By allowing yourself to do things imperfectly, you can negate being paralyzed or deciding that if you cannot do something perfectly you can’t do it at all.

Though, it doesn’t always feel good, for example, there are times when Christy will want to go to the gym for 90 minutes, but she only has 45 minutes. That 45 minutes may not be what she wanted, but it’s still good, and it’s a whole lot better than making the easier decision of not going at all.

She doesn’t try to achieve “balance,” because balance is relative. To Christy, you can create the perfect schedule, but if you show up to work, the gym, family time, or whatever else as a shell of yourself, that’s not balanced either.

She considers being balanced as understanding your priorities and being intentional with them. Applying her attention in each moment and being present.

Getting Uncomfortable:

Christy points out that the times in life that you’ve been successful, you did not show up every day perfectly, but for some reason when it comes to health and weight loss, people think it should be automatic. Because of that idea, when things can’t be done perfectly they feel like they can’t do it—but that doesn’t apply anywhere else in life.

Jared finds that people play the “I’m a perfectionist” card when they are struggling and validating bad behavior. In areas of life where we’re crushing, we tend to have the most flexibility and movement.

Christy agrees that people make the decision to not do something when they can’t be perfect or go all-in because it’s easier than the discomfort of not doing things well.

People will think something like, “why join a gym when it will be painful? I’ll get in a little better shape and THEN join a gym.”

This happens because they don’t want to change and be uncomfortable in the moment, so they feel compelled to try to make a change before.

When Jared comes across people who want to wait until life slows down or “balances out,” they are setting themselves up to throw in the towel when life gets chaotic again—which it inevitably will.

Christy understands that when there is a lot on one’s plate, it’s can be very desirable to just push things off until you have a perfect season for it. Realistically, however, that perfect season is not likely to come about.

She finds that it’s much better to learn how to operate within those “difficult seas.”

Taking time for self-care during those hard times allows you to show up for the competing interests within your life. Being imperfect isn’t easy—and it feels uncomfortable—but it’s a positive thing because that discomfort breaks the status quo.

For Christy, Jiu-jitsu was one of the things that required her to get uncomfortable. Going back to before she became a fitness coach, Christy was completely stuck. She was 40 lbs overweight, had gone through multiple knee surgeries, had two kids, and found herself in her late twenties—after having always been athletic as a kid—thinking she wasn’t going to be able to exercise again.

She tried a variety of diets, lost and gained the same 5 lbs over and over, and thought this was just what mom life was—that you didn’t get to feel good in your own skin or feel confident.

She was happy as a mom and as a professional, but was stuck and felt like the “chubby girl” so much that she would hide in pictures, etc.

She found a personal trainer who taught her how to lift weights, how to eat better, and created a community and a space where she could show up and do the work. He saw the potential in her that she couldn’t see herself.

This personal trainer helped break down the mental barriers she had.

In the year they worked together she lost 40 lbs and subsequently started going to Crossfit, got certified, and started training people.

Something she had always wanted to do was martial arts but she had the same limiting beliefs—despite the great shape she had gotten into. Christy believed that she would blow out her knee and that jiu-jitsu was not something that was possible for her to get into.

She has also always been timid in confrontation and believed that she was incapable of physically defending herself. She enrolled her boys in a kids’ jiu-jitsu class and eventually decided that she would try doing the kids’ class, which is how she got started.

One day, she ended up in a confrontation with someone who was being awful to her middle child. This was an adult who was being verbally abusive to her kid.

She told him to stop and he turned his verbal assault on her.

During that confrontation, she felt scared and unsure, but it made her realize there was a place where she needed to grow and it pushed her to go to the adult jiu-jitsu class. It became a personal journey for her.

Personal Growth:

While the part of Christy that causes her to have a hard time standing up for herself is still there, jiu-jitsu has taught her to feel the presence of others differently. She is still nurturing the part of herself that is afraid. She attributes a lot of her recent personal growth to jiu-jitsu.

Earlier this year, Christy attended an event called “Guns & Gis.” She initially didn’t want to even entertain the idea of attending but ended up going because a friend asked her to accompany her.

She was terrified of the gun—so much so that she would shake when handling it—but she pushed through her fear.

She was in an environment that was set up for her to be successful—there were instructors there and people around her to support her, but she still had to do her own work. Building those parts of herself up and getting through those things that are scary has helped her grow and become more confident.

Jared truly believes that you cannot grow without having something to overcome—the idea that you can’t become patient without impatience.

Christy finds that people tend to operate within the spaces they are most comfortable and succeed in those areas. She, for example, is very comfortable with leading fitness classes. But by doing those things that were outside of her comfort zone, she has been able to grow.

It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing and it doesn’t have to be perfect.

In jiu-jitsu, she has limitations because her knee doesn’t bend past 90 degrees, but she tries things the way they are taught at first and works around the things she can’t do.

Jared has found that the mentality of, “Okay, I can’t do this thing, but what can I do is…”—something that he has experienced, himself, in jiu-jitsu—translates into other areas of life, as well.

Mental Wins:

Jared often finds that you can’t mentally get where you want to be without becoming physically uncomfortable. Too often, people just want to meditate on the idea of fixing their inner game.

Fear is something you feel in the body and you have to get your physical body aligned with your mental state.

Christy, for example, loves hiking but is terrified of heights. She will avoid summits because of this fear.

One of the things she wants to do is climb Mount Rainier, which is a multi-day trip. She has all kinds of stories she tells herself surrounding her fear of heights and climbing a mountain—her knee can’t handle it, she could get injured, etc.

She also realizes that these stories aren’t real.

Jared just did a training where he talked about this defense mechanism—where you create these stories.

He uses the example of driving away from your house, wondering if you locked your door, and then creating and buying into this elaborate narrative of what might happen because you drove off and forgot to lock your door.

The story causes you to stress out even though it isn’t driven by any kind of logic.

What Christy does about these narratives is make decisions in advance. She will verbalize her plans, ask her friends who are into mountaineering, find a class, and sign up for it. She starts by addressing her legitimate concerns—like taking a class on mountaineering, buying the right jacket, etc.— then, she is creating a scenario and surrounding herself with people, just like with Guns and Gis, where she can be successful. All she has to do is actually do it.

Christy emphasizes that these things that get you out of your comfort zone don’t have to be climbing a mountain or doing jiu-jitsu. At the very beginning for her, it was simply going to a fitness class.

You just need to take the first step in whatever it is that you are struggling with. If you want to get in shape but are afraid to go to the gym, one thing you can do is schedule a consultation at that gym. Going is the hard part, but you can accomplish that first step. You can then verbalize it out loud, tell people you're going to the gym, buy yourself some new sneakers, etc.

When you show up for things despite being terrified, it carries over into other areas of your life, builds your confidence, and opens doors. You have to look internally and decide what the life you want truly is.

In closing, Jared points out that your moment of overcoming can be as small as asking for your salad dressing on the side—you just need to find your tipping point. Christy reiterates that it’s your individual next step that you need to focus on to build the life you want.