Small change: run with the pain

Have you ever completed an endurance event? (No one would blame you if the answer to this is no.)

If so, you will recognise “the wall” – the moment when the physical pain that you are enduring builds to the point where it seems to overwhelm… well, everything.

Something similar happens in many change processes. There comes a moment where keeping going and stopping both look like the worst of all available worlds.

To make it through, the secret is to stop running against the pain and start running with it. Accept it as both a temporary state of affairs and a sign that real work is getting done. Understand that, while pain will never be your friend, it’s also not your enemy. Rather, it’s just the natural consequence of pushing your limits as you move ever closer to the finish line.

Something to consider: how much of what I’m experiencing is the difficulty itself, and how much is the energy I’m spending in resisting it?

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