Thank you for reading And Also, a weekly newsletter featuring personal stories and lesson plans to help you navigate life ✨!
Once a week, I swim.
Nearly every single week over the last year, I have gotten up early; thrown some sweats on over my bathing suit; and driven, still half asleep, to swim laps at my local community center.
The reasons why are varied: I had the endorsement of a doctor, the encouragement of a few friends — and sure, I might of had some visions of myself as the next Simone Manuel gliding through my head.
Well, I haven’t glided so much as I’ve frog-kicked through the water. With a kickboard. At approximately .2 miles per hour. For a year.
Now, I can generally keep myself from drowning. And understandably there are days when I just don’t want to get my hair wet. But mostly I haven’t done so much as dip my head below the water because I’m uncomfortable.
I’m uncomfortable looking stupid in front of a pool full of people. I’m uncomfortable being slow in lanes I have to share with swimmers who actually know proper technique. I’m uncomfortable being a beginner.
As part of my own reparenting journey (more on that in a future newsletter), the other day I asked my mom, “What’re some of the things I cared about or loved doing as a kid?”
“Reading, getting good grades, friendships,” she said.
I suppose that makes me a pretty normal kid — but I had to laugh at “getting good grades”. Not “playing outside”, not “making up stories”, not even the general concept of learning new things! No, I very specifically wanted those tangible markers of value.
Granted, I know I loved all of those other activities as a kid too, but the good grades callout feels embarrassingly spot-on — a refrigerator-worthy report card was one of my first (and favorite) forms of validation! If I do this, I get that. If I get As, I get praise, I get attention, I get love. I am good.
From the start, getting things right was the clearest measure of how worthy I was.
From the start, getting things right was the clearest measure of how worthy I was.
That being said, I did love learning. I still love learning! I can be insatiable when a subject really interests me (yes, I did do a years-long study of Human Design just for fun, thank you for asking!). This year alone, I have taken two leadership development programs, participated in a yearlong writing mastermind, and completed several workshops on topics covering everything from building resilience to creating a routine that sticks. And when my manager set aside one day a month for everyone on our team to focus on professional development, I was like, “Heard, chef!” and mapped out my personal curriculum for the rest of the year.
So mom was right — both things are true: I love learning and I’ve always been a sucker for top marks. But unlike in grade school, I think the pursuit of that “perfect score” has done me more harm than good.
Because when you’re only taught to win, you never learn to fail. Because when the measure of progress is only what you get right, mistakes are inaccurately undervalued. And because you can’t get a good grade at the things you actually want to get good at — things like writing books and cooking meals and managing your money — unless you’re willing to get uncomfortable and be pretty bad at them first.
You can’t get a good grade at the things you actually want to get good at.
In his latest book, Hidden Potential, Adam Grant writes: “The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort . . . The best cure to feeling uncomfortable about making mistakes is to make more mistakes.”
Oh, so not getting good grades then?! Weird.
That’s what I’m still learning: We have to be willing to be messy. To make mistakes. To not just get comfortable being uncomfortable, but actively seek out opportunities to practice.
We’ve gotta dip our heads under the water — kickboard be damned — and just start swimming.
Idea: Consider how you might get uncomfortable this week (a potentially family-filled holiday week for those of us in the US!) — maybe you set a boundary or maybe you try to cook a tougher dish for Thanksgiving or maybe you sign up for swim lessons even though you are almost 40 years old? Just some thoughts :)
Anecdote: I don’t know what the Universe is trying to tell me, but my pool closed this week. Yes, that pool! I’d known for awhile that they were closing other parts of the community center for two-year renovations, but the pool was supposed to remain untouched and open to the public. Alas, as I was putting the finishing touches on this letter, my friend texted that the pool was shutting down too. Maybe I’m meant to get out of my comfort zone on dry land?! I’ll keep you posted.
Inspiration: Lisa Olivera always has incredible insight to share in her Substack, Human Stuff. I was especially inspired by the following in this week’s newsletter: “It’s safe to be wrong. It’s safe to be correct. It’s safe to not know. It’s safe to let people down. It’s safe to practice living your values. It’s safe to fumble. It’s safe to trust what you know, to trust your gut response. It’s safe to be a beginner. It’s safe to be wise. It’s safe to have unformed opinions. It’s safe to grieve. It’s safe to try. It’s safe to quit. It’s safe to surrender. It’s safe to listen to your intuition. It’s safe to hold multiple truths at once, to let them swirl into something confusing yet still true. It’s safe to be uncomfortable.”
Make sure you’re subscribed to And Also, because next week I’ll share the lesson plan I’m using to put deliberate discomfort into practice in my everyday life 🤓
Yes!! I often talk with clients about how the question isn’t only “What will make me happy?” But also, “What kind of discomfort am I willing to feel to build the life I want to live?”
So beautiful - and I loved having you read it to me