Doing what’s uncomfortable makes me better

This morning on the elliptical was different. I go most work mornings and work out on the elliptical for about 30 minutes, and it has become a little easy and a little routine, but not this morning. Why not this morning? Well, last night I finished a podcast from Freakonomics Radio about how to become good at just about anything. The core strategy discussed was the idea popularized by Anders Ericsson called Deliberate Practice.

Deliberate Practice, among other things, is practice that makes you uncomfortable. It pushes you past the limit of your current ability. Deliberate practice is knowing that you can run a 10-minute mile and pushing for a faster time. Deliberate practice is the only way to truly improve on skill, pushing yourself outside of the zone where your skill resides and into new areas where you will develop more skill.

I think we all have a propensity to coast, to do what we know we can accomplish and stop there. I have been doing that for months on the elliptical. But, doing that won’t get me to where I want to go, it won’t make me better, it only maintains where I am currently. If I want to get better, I have to do what’s hard, be uncomfortable and push myself further each time. It will be tough, but it will be worth it.