#59: Hold your nose and do the scary thing
It would be great if we never felt insecure or anxious or scared when we had to do things like ask for money or refuse a request or even just get on with writing what we're supposed to be writing. But this sort of discomfort can be really hard to shift, no matter how much we work on our confidence and how many affirmations we scribble on post-it notes and stick to our monitor. It can be tempting, then, to think that we need to put off doing the hard things until we've got a few more years of therapy under our belts. But - and hear me out here - what if we just did them, even though they're horrible? What if you could ignore your discomfort and just get on with life? If you're game, friend, your Imperfectionist cheerleader has some words of advice to help you get started.
Here's an (admittedly quite old) article summarising research on affective forecasting and the like: We don't know our own strength
Reference:
Wilson, T. D. and Gilbert, D. T. 2005: 'Affective forecasting: knowing what to want', Current Directions in Psychological Science 14/3: 131-134.
Episode transcript:
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and week by week I’ll be drawing on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hi, friends. What are the things that make you really uncomfortable? I mean things that with your rational, sensible hat on, you know really shouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable? If you’re anything like some of my clients, money might well come up here. Things like asking for a pay rise. Or, if you do any freelance or self-employed work, talking about your fees to clients or potential clients. Or negotiating a starting salary for a new job. Ugh, right? Or, maybe what really sets your teeth on edge are difficult conversations. Having to confront someone who has treated you unfairly. And then what about the normal, day-to-day stuff? Trying to write - that can be really uncomfortable, can’t it? For many of us, it triggers all sorts of anxieties.
I’m worried that just listening to that intro might push you over the edge and have you pulling out your earbuds and heading to take a nap or eat a cake or punch a pillow, whatever your favourite comfort behaviour is. It’s stressful even to think about some of these things. But, unfortunately, they’re often not things we can avoid. Or rather, you might be able to avoid some of them - you can undercharge or accept being overlooked for promotion or look at Instagram instead of writing - but not without paying a price. We often avoid, or procrastinate over, doing uncomfortable but important things, because that helps us avoid the scary discomfort of actually doing them, but deep down you know you’re not buying yourself any sort of quality comfort by doing that. By avoiding uncomfortable things, we often just swap the acute for the chronic: the confrontation or the conversation about fees or tackling your writing project head-on are things that can be uncomfortable in a supercharged way that doesn’t last that long and then it’s over, but by not doing the scary thing, we opt in to an enduring, low-key dissatisfaction that builds up the more things we avoid and doesn’t go away. Alternatively, maybe you don’t even swap the acute for the chronic and instead end up with the worst of both worlds: you avoid the scary thing, feel stressed about avoiding it, and then end up having to do it at some point anyway. If that’s you, you’re definitely not alone.
Since these uncomfortable things are often things we really have to do, we need strategies to help us do them. Lots of strategies involve helping us feel less uncomfortable about whatever it is we have to do. You might see a therapist to explore why you find it so hard to advocate for yourself, in the hope that eventually you might find it a bit easier. You might listen to podcasts like this one - plenty of my episodes (maybe even all of them) are geared towards helping you do necessary uncomfortable things more comfortably. Strategies like this are important. I mean, if you don’t need to feel so uncomfortable about what are often routine aspects of adulting, then of course you’re going to want to work on reducing that discomfort. Who wants to feel bad if they don’t have to? It might not even have occurred to you that you don’t need to feel uncomfortable about these things. There are lots of people out there who just assume unquestioningly that they shouldn’t - in some unexplored, philosophically dodgy sense of ‘shouldn’t’ - be doing outrageous things like charging for their time and applying for jobs they are qualified for and asking for promotions that they deserve. Removing pointless discomfort is absolutely a good thing.
But, even so, I think focusing on making the uncomfortable less uncomfortable comes with risks. There are two risks that I want to mention. One is the risk that, by telling ourselves that we don’t need to feel so uncomfortable about doing the uncomfortable thing, we move from doing something gentle and encouraging for ourselves into doing something toxic and judgmental. You know how creative your inner critic can be with finding ways to attack you. Telling ourselves something like, ‘I don’t need to feel uncomfortable about applying for this promotion’, can be something reassuring and supportive, because when we say things like this to ourselves, we’re doing it as a way of reminding ourselves that despite how we might feel, we are fully qualified and deserving and entitled to apply for the promotion. But when, after this well-intentioned reminder, we continue to feel uncomfortable, our inner critic gets involved and tells us that since we’re feeling uncomfortable when we shouldn’t, there’s something wrong with us: we’re weak and irrational and broken and what’s the point in even trying to improve, we’re clearly beyond help. Honestly, I think this is a real risk with self-improvement advice, including my own. We hear it and initially we feel empowered - ‘Yeah! I’m a fantastic, worthy, deserving person who is entitled to take up space in the universe!’ - but when that sense of empowerment doesn’t filter through to the right sort of emotional changes - in other words, when we find that we still feel unconfident and stressed about asserting ourselves - we end up dejected and feeling like there’s something wrong with us.
(That conclusion we draw is not even remotely correct, by the way. Even good, sensible self-improvement advice isn’t a magic wand. We often have an experience of hearing it click into place when we hear it - we have thoughts like ‘Yes, of course I’m entitled to the same respect to which other people are entitled!’ - but that’s just to say that we realise that the advice checks out at the rational level. Changes at the emotional level happen much more slowly. You might, with your rational hat on, be fully on board with the idea that you’re entitled to respect - but actually stepping into that role and emotionally wearing your newly-discovered respect is more difficult. You end up thinking one thing and feeling another. But that’s just the way we work. It’s not that you’ll never be capable of changing things at the emotional level - it’s just that your rational self will need to remind your emotional self hundreds or maybe thousands of times that she’s got things wrong before you start to see positive changes. Our emotional selves are a bit like children, or a bit like my children, anyway. If you want them to put their shoes away or get ready for bed, you don’t just ask once and then wonder why they haven’t moved. You know you need to ask again and again and again before anything happens.)
Right, where was I? That’s right, I was talking about the risks of focusing on trying to make the uncomfortable less uncomfortable. The first risk, I said, was that we end up criticising ourselves for still feeling uncomfortable even after we’ve accepted that we don’t need to. The second risk is this: we end up thinking that making uncomfortable things less uncomfortable is something we need to do in order to be able to do those things. Reducing the discomfort changes from a nice-to-have into a need-to-have. People end up saying things like, ‘I’d love to start my own business but I’m so uncomfortable asking people to pay me that I can’t’. And, ‘I’ve been treated unjustly by this colleague but I’m so uncomfortable talking to them about it that I’m going to have to let it slide’. We think that because it makes us feel bad, we can’t do it - at least, not until we’ve had months or maybe even years of therapy to try to dig down into why we have this problem in the first place. When we do this, we sell ourselves short. Most of the time, we don’t need to feel comfortable doing something in order to be able to do it. I say ‘most of the time’ rather than ‘every time’ because I want to acknowledge that there are cases of phobia and disabling anxiety that make it unrealistic for some people do to some things without expert help. But most cases when we say ‘I can’t’ aren’t like that. Most cases of ‘I can’t’ are cases of ‘I really don’t want to’. You really don’t want to ask for payment or say no to a request or challenge someone about the way they’ve been treating you or work on your thesis, but you can, even though the thought of doing it makes you want to crawl under a rock. Feeling like you want to crawl under a rock while you’re doing something is not remotely pleasant, but you don’t have to let it stop you. In the words of the late psychologist Susan Jeffers, you can feel the fear and do it anyway.
So, let’s suppose you want to say no to something you’ve been asked to do, or raise the issue of fees for some freelance thing you’ve been asked to do, or have a difficult conversation with a colleague, or make serious inroads into your writing project. And let’s suppose that you’re horrified by the idea. Thinking about doing it makes your skin crawl. You lie awake at night thinking about it, and maybe swinging between convincing yourself that of course you can do it, it’s fine, people do this all the time, it’s no problem - and then wondering what the hell you were thinking, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do this, you’d rather just do the job for free or take on the extra commitment that you don’t have time for or let the colleague get away with treating you unjustly this time. You know it’s something you should do, something that you’ll be glad to have done, something that, if you manage to do, will give you confidence in your own ability to do the next stressful thing - but how do you do it?
I want to share with you a strategy that I’ve found useful to develop, and that I often discuss with clients who are faced with having to do something important but uncomfortable. It’s this. When you’re about to do the uncomfortable thing, give up on trying to eliminate your discomfort. Instead, accept that it’s horrible. Acknowledge it. And then just hold your nose and do it. Hold your nose and do it even though your skin is crawling and you’re breaking into a sweat and you’re ready to make a bolt for the door. Because then, it’s over, and you’ve done it, and you don’t have to think about it any more, except to reflect with disbelief that wow, you did it.
There’s a few things I want to say to flesh out this strategy a bit. Let’s first address what I said about giving up on trying to eliminate your discomfort. Why am I suggesting you do that? Well, because of what I said earlier about the risks of doing this. Valuable as eliminating discomfort can be, it’s not something you need to do in order to be able to do the scary thing, and so at the moment when you’re gearing up to finally do the thing, trying to feel more comfortable shifts our focus and energy away from actually getting on with what we need to be doing. Leave the comfort till later. You’re like a marathon runner here. You don’t get the massage during the marathon - you wait until after. You accept that the marathon is uncomfortable and you just do it.
Then, there’s the holding your nose and doing it part. How horrible, right? How can you possibly do that? Here’s a couple of reflections that will hopefully get you started. The first is this. You already accept that this thing is going to be really really uncomfortable to do. So, ask yourself: how long is this going to be really really uncomfortable for? In the case of something like asking for a fee or saying no to something, it’s probably no more than a couple of minutes, right? If that. Sending an email saying ‘my fee for this is’ whatever. Saying to someone, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t commit to this at the moment’. A difficult conversation with a colleague or working on a scary writing project will likely take longer - but there’s an important distinction to make here. The conversation or the writing might last minutes or even hours. But the horrible discomfort - the thing that’s stopping you from making a start - will be much briefer. It will be hard right at the start, but then you’ll have the momentum and you’ll keep it going even if it is as uncomfortable as you fear it is (which, spoiler alert, it won’t be - I’ll come to this in a moment). So, when you find yourself dreading doing something and focusing on just how horrible it’s going to be but not on how long the horrible part is going to last, ask that question. How long is this going to be uncomfortable for? Come on, you can do 5 minutes of discomfort. I believe in you.
Before you answer that question, ‘how long is this going to be uncomfortable for?’, though, here’s something important you need to keep in mind. Whatever answer you come up with, you’re almost certainly exaggerating how uncomfortable it’s going to be and underestimating how well you’re going to be able to cope with the discomfort and how quickly you’ll recover afterwards. We humans are very bad at what psychologists have called ‘affective forecasting’: predicting our emotional reactions to things that haven’t happened yet. We think scary things are going to be more horrible than they actually turn out to be, and that the discomfort and other nasty stuff we feel afterwards will last longer than it actually does. We have, believe it or not, a psychological immune system that helps us cope with doing nasty things. The psychologists Timothy D. Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert have said this about it: ‘Like the physiological immune system that fights threats to physical health, people have a psychological immune system that fights threats to emotional well-being’. The trouble is, the psychologists tell us, we tend to overlook the existence of this psychological immune system, and attribute our emotional recovery to external factors instead. I’ll put the details of the Wilson and Gilbert article, along with a link to a short article summarising research in this area, in the episode notes in case you want to explore further. But the upshot is: the discomfort you’re trying to avoid by not doing the thing is - according to science - going to be milder and briefer than you think. So, it’s not just that you can do discomfort, which you can. It’s that you can definitely do discomfort that is going to be not as bad as you’re expecting, either in intensity or duration.
Ok. So, holding your nose and doing the thing is not going to be as bad as you think. Here’s another strategy to get you on your way. Ask yourself, what’s the alternative to doing the scary thing? You’re avoiding it because you want to avoid the discomfort of doing it. But avoiding it isn’t comfortable, is it? Because all the while that you’re avoiding doing it, you’re thinking about having to do it, which is also horrible. Your skin is crawling, you’re having palpitations, and you’re lying awake at night tying yourself up in knots thinking about it. Jeez, just put yourself out of your misery. The choice between doing the thing and avoiding it is not a choice between discomfort and comfort. It’s a choice between two types of discomfort. If you choose the discomfort of doing the thing, it’s over quickly, and then you have the added benefit of having done something that you needed to do. Yay you! Now, this choice between two types of discomfort is, more specifically, a choice between discomfort that results from your inaction - that is, your avoidance - and discomfort that results from your action, or doing the thing. Action is harder than inaction. Of course it is. I talked about this in episode #55: Inertia and your overthinking dick brain. With action, you have to do something, after all. You need to get started. But getting started itself isn’t something to be afraid of, even if it’s harder than just lying on the sofa. It’s certainly not something that is worth lying awake at night worrying about.
So, there you go. Whatever it is that you’re afraid to do, I see your discomfort. I wish you didn’t have it, but the fact that you do doesn’t make you flawed, except in the sense that we humans are all flawed. But, shut up about the discomfort and do the bloody thing anyway. Hold your nose and do it, friend. Write the email. Start the conversation. Whatever. Imagine me giving you a big hug here, followed by a loving but firm, sick-of-your-shit shove in the right direction. Until next time.
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you like to use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d consider leaving a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You’ll find links there to The Academic Imperfectionist on Twitter and Facebook too. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via my website or by tweeting your idea with the hashtag #AcademicImperfectionist. Thank you for listening, and see you next time!
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