This is Part One of a two-part series.
In 2011, Ray Dalio, founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, published a book outlining his principles for success in life. Principles, he said, are concepts that an be applied over and over gain in similar situations – they are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of life – and can be used by anyone to get what they want out of life.
Dalio outlined the five most important choices we can make for a successful life. You get to define what success means to you, but once you decide where you want to go, you then have to make important choices on how to get there. If you make the wrong ones, you don’t arrive at your goal.
Being a life coach myself, I’ve seen these principles play out in people’s lives (mine included) in a very personal way, affecting not only careers but relationships and personal fulfilment.
The five choices people can make for a successful life are:
- Understanding how to manage pain to produce progress
- Face “harsh realities”
- Worry about achieving the goal
- Make decisions on basis of first, second, and third order consequences
- Hold themselves accountable
Today’s choice is:
- Allow pain to stand in the way of progress vs
- Understand how to manage pain to produce progress
How do you usually react to pain? Pain comes in many forms. It could come in the form of rejection, failure, judgment, disappointment, or something else.
Imagine that you were a salesperson, approaching people on the street. If someone were to reject your approach, some kind of emotional reaction would happen within you.
- You might lash out at the person / situation, blaming them for being rude. You make the external world the cause of your pain.
- You might also beat yourself up. Maybe you were not good looking enough, not good enough, you were not made for this job, etc.
Feeling like the situation is hopeless (either the external world is not cooperating, or is hostile, or you yourself are doomed), you might then give up. Maybe sales is just not for you.
These are bad reactions to pain.
Pain happens for a number of reasons. But mostly, pain happens because we’ve reached our emotional limit. We’re at the edge of our comfort zone.
Sometimes, pain tells us where to continue to push in order to progress. Sometimes pain is simply a distraction that we must overcome to reach our goals.
Pain can be handled to achieve our goals
When I was training to become a life coach, I came face to face with my biggest fear – the fear of rejection. As a fledgling coach, I had to keep practising and honing my skills. Because I had not built up a reputation, I had to reach out to potential clients instead of waiting for clients to come to me. So I would reach out to ask people if they were interested in being coached by me. Many times they said no. I was being constantly rejected. (Just like Doctor Strange facing Dormammu, failing constantly, having his biggest fear played out in an infinite loop.)
I knew that if I wanted to fulfil my dream of becoming a coach, I would have to face this pain over and over again. And I could not let it stop me. So I did. And I eventually found people who were eager to work with me.
Pain must be handled for us to achieve our goals.
Pain points us in the direction of growth
I was once at a Toastmasters meeting. One of the segments was the Table Topics segment, in which any audience member could raise their hands to speak for 2 minutes on a topic. I really wanted to raise my hand and speak. But I was really afraid of embarrassing myself in public. When push came to shove -8 times! I actually had 8 chances to raise my hand, but I did not. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone to face my fears of public speaking. But something inside me stopped me. I believed myself not worthy of people’s time and attention, so I did not raise my hand. The pain I felt was a huge disappointment with myself, and also the awareness that I was constantly stopping myself in life simply by not daring to make a jump and to put myself out there. The pain was real. But it also pointed me in the direction of growth. I figured that this was something I had to overcome for me to grow. This is where we must push against our pain in order to find out what lies on the other side.
So how can understand how to manage pain to produce progress?
- Value the goal more than you value your comfort
For us to have enough motivation to overcome the pain, we must value the goal and the outcome more than the pain. What drives you? What do you value? Constantly connect to your core values so that you are motivated to achieve your goal. If you are not willing to overcome pain to achieve your goal, either the goal is not important to you, or you are letting fear stand in your way.
- Be honest with yourself
We often cheat ourselves by being dishonest with ourselves. If we feel that we can’t achieve something, we tell ourselves that it was not important to us in the first place and that we didn’t really want it. Or we sink into a state of resignation and self-pity, feeling like things are hopeless or that the world is against us. At this point it is very important to be absolutely honest with yourself about what you want.
- Recognise where the pain is coming from
Where is the pain coming from? Pain can appear very real, but its all just happening within us. Is it coming from fear? We have a lot of fears – fear of failure, fear of facing reality, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of being wrong, fear of judgment, fear of not being loved. Somewhere inside us, we carry this pain with us. When we become aware of where the pain is, we can choose to face it with courage. Only when we dare to face our pain and our fears, can we move forward.
Another word for this principle is courage. It is about having the courage to face your fears.
