37. Coffee with Anna & Dana: Conquering the Uncomfortable - strategies for managing discomfort and stepping out of your comfort zone

Anna-Maria Moonen has had various leadership roles in the Information Technology and Telco services industry. She thrives in environments that enable innovative thinking with a focus on growing the most important asset of the company – the people.

Dana Jaber Diab is an Information and Communications Technology Business Leader with an unquenchable curiosity for all things tech, entrepreneurship, and leadership. 

During this episode, Anna, Dana, and I  discuss the difficulty of feeling uncomfortable and how to deal with it. We all shared our experiences when we felt uncomfortable and things that helped us overcome the feeling and reframe. We discussed the importance of being intentional about how one projects themselves and cost-benefit analysis.

We discussed the importance of getting to know yourself, being comfortable with your capabilities, and the difficulty of talking about your achievements. 

We also discussed the importance of stepping out of one's comfort zone to grow and suggested setting a time limit to vent negative feelings and allowing one to move on. We also emphasized the importance of having a support system to help navigate difficult situations.

Questions explored: 

• What makes us label a potentially negative outcome as negative?
• How can I be more certain about and own who I am as a human, the strengths I have, and the things I have achieved?
• Is this serving me?

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Navigating Uncomfortable Situations and How to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable
• Exploring the Psychology of Rejection
• Experimenting with Different Leadership Styles
• A Discussion on the Journey of Self-Awareness and Self-Advocacy
• Exploring the benefits of stepping out of comfort zones
• Exploring discomfort and managing stressful situations
• Setting up a complaining appointment to overcome negativity
• Overcoming the fear of the unknown
• Discussion on overcoming procrastination and discomfort when tackling unfamiliar tasks and problems

8 EIGHT SLEEP
Save $200 on 8Sleep and get better quality and deeper sleep with automatic temperature adjustment

LEORÊVER COMPRESSION AND ACTIVEWEAR
Get 10% off Loerêver Balanced Compression and Activewear to elevate your confidence and performance

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

This content is also available in a video version on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who may enjoy it as well, and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also submit your feedback directly on my website.

Follow @GrandSlamJourney on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and join the LinkedIn community.

Transcript

Dana: Great. Happy Friday to you both. Spring is here. I've got a big desert willow tree in front of my window that is blooming, and it has beautiful smell. So it sets me up in a good mood every morning when I sit and look at it. And I hope you have some beauty that you get to look at this weekend. I have two topics that I want to discuss today. It's just two things that I have been sitting with, and in the spirit of experimentation and growth, I would be curious to tap into your wisdom and hear your thoughts around these topics. So the first one, how do you get comfortable feeling uncomfortable? It's a very general question, and I'm, um, going to share with you both a recent experience I had that triggered me to kind of sit with it and think about it. So let me tell you my experience, and then I'll turn it over to you to allow you to give examples of, uh, when have you most recently felt uncomfortable, and how did you deal with that? Does that sound good?

Klara: Yeah.

Anna: Great.

Klara: Go ahead. Um, I'm curious to hear your experience.

Dana: On a professional level. I have a bias for action, and I tend to throw myself into situations whether I am comfortable and ready for them or not. But that unknown gets me excited and ready to go and learn and figure things out. When it comes to areas that have, uh, personal impact, not necessarily a business outcome impact, I tend to be more reluctant. And, uh, that's an interesting observation that I've been sitting at myself and looking at all of the contradictions that each of us hold. So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a colleague, and I was seeking their advice on a particular situation that has personal implications on my career. And they advised me to reach out to an individual with an email and introduce myself, talk about how great I am, and see where that may lead. That had made me super uncomfortable. I think most of us and other female colleagues I speak to, and even male colleagues, we grew up thinking that your performance is what really needs to speak for you. However, research shows that performance is just 30% of the equation. Your image and your exposure is what completes that 70% of the pie. And you really need to be intentional about how you project yourself and how you network, et cetera. So sending an email out of the blue to an individual I do not know to talk about myself was out of character. And I sat on it, ruminating on it for 36 hours. And at 06:00 a.m. In the morning, 36 hours later, I wrote a draft email and I hit send. And my thought process was, okay, let's do a, um, cost-benefit analysis of this action that I'm going to take. What would be a positive outcome that the individual would like my outreach. They would be interested in talking some more. A neutral outcome. They would say, thank you for your email, and it may lead to nothing, and I wouldn't be any worse off than I would be. And a negative outcome is that they would totally ignore it. I would feel crappy about it, and maybe I may not do that again, but hey, I would at least have done something that doesn't come naturally to me. So, um, I did send an email and it did have a response, and we'll see where that response may lead. So that's an ongoing experiment. But it's just that whole period of 36 hours when I said in uncomfortableness, if you will if that's a word, and all the feelings that it generated. And going through that decision process was something I wanted to stop and think about and see if there are any nuggets there that can help make this process easier for other situations.

Klara: I love that, and I love your example. And I love it mainly because I think it's something all of us can resonate. It is relevant for men, women, and humans, of all different careers across the world. I've done a lot of mentorship in the past, and this is the number one thing that seems to pop up for us. And even as I attend conferences and even the women-specific conferences, this seems to be the number one topic we all struggle with. How do we talk about our own value that we bring? How do we let others know what we're working on and what we're great at? So I think one, I just want to acknowledge you for bringing this perfect example because many people can probably learn from it. And actually, before I go to mine, can I challenge you on one thing?

Dana: Yeah, go for it.

Klara: So in the third scenario, you said the negative outcome, it would be no response or potentially a rejection. So what makes you perceive that as negative? I guess other than the typical rejection. There are a lot of studies and analyses about the psychology of being rejected. But taking that aside, what makes you label that as negative?

Dana: So, great question. If I were to dig deeper into this categorization, I would say it would be this complete stranger's perception of who I am. Would they view me as someone who's arrogant, who's reaching out and full of themselves and tooting their own horn? So it's coming across as an individual with a particular character that may not necessarily tie to who I am would have been the downside.

Klara: Can I also have a comment on that?

Dana: Yeah.

Klara: So to me, this is like a typical example of what I think our brains go through because you out locally apply the first thing as the negative judgment. Oh, wow. What if this outreach, they haven't responded, but I'm viewed as this I mean, there may very well be no response, but what if they actually now just know your name and at least know a little bit of Dana. And maybe one day when you're walking the hallways, you run into them and you introduce yourself. I was like, oh, I was busy. I forgot the response. But I remember you may have sent me an email. So I think I'm just stating it as an example of I think it's more the brain games that our own minds play with them. And as humans, I think across the board, we tend to first dive into the negative because that's our brain trying to protect us from our ego being hurt. But it's almost like playing analysis of, uh, where is the ego and why is the ego protecting me? And almost playing yeah, I hear you. Thank you. I acknowledge it and almost setting it aside. And when you acknowledge it, that then allows you to kind of move over what I think the opportunity or possibility and doing the other cost benefit of analysis. Well, even if they don't respond, am I really worse off? Or even if they reject me, am I really worse off? Because at least you have information, and whether it is effort or isn't, that allows you to take perhaps a more accurate step going forward. So that's just how I'm looking at it. And it's so much easier to look at it from the outside than from the inside. So, like coaching somebody on this, I think it's so much easier than if I'm playing my own internal dialogue because you can see the other side of you. Let me just stop there and give Anna a chance because I think I've taken too much airtime.

Anna: No, that's fine. That's good. I just wanted to add to that. And that is, in the absence of information, there are plenty of voids that our brains or our minds are uncomfortable with. Speaking of the topic right? And I think we're, uh, unconsciously making choices on how to fill those voids. And if you have a fear or are uncomfortable with it to begin with, if there's enough time that has elapsed with silence from the other party and response for what you think is expected as a time frame for response. And you didn't get anything. And you have no information back, no feedback, no nothing. You will automatically assume what you're fearing, most likely is what I'm thinking. So that's a mind game. So I think Clara has a good point. We can choose what we fill that void with if it's positive. I mean, we don't have facts in that moment, right? And usually, we just want to fill voids with something, so we'll populate it with, okay, they are ejecting me, or whatnot. So I think maybe just think it from a different angle, that, well, maybe some circumstances occurred I could choose to follow up, to verify. Don't let that consume you, what your fear is. Trying to populate that void with. Does that make sense when I'm outputting it that way? That's what I'm trying to transfer. That first of all, I got to commend you even though you were very uncomfortable with it; you did it just to try it out. And since you're already on that path, go all in. It's a very big step to throw yourself out and do something that's not natural and experiment natural to our own preferred behaviors and still experiment and see what comes out of that. I've learned throughout my years I've been in several situations, like, I have a certain leadership style when I've been a manager in my career, but I've also learned that with certain individuals, you have to adopt a completely different leadership style to fit that individual's needs. And I had to adapt, uh, behaviors and qualities that weren't coming naturally to me, and it was kind of like acting, and I felt uncomfortable with them, but I applied them anyway, and you have to experiment to see what comes out of it. So that first step you took is great. I would encourage it anyone to throw themselves out there just for the experimental experience because what I also learned in those situations is that I got a completely different response from those individuals when I applied research-based different approaches that weren't natural to me as an individual. But I realized it doesn't always have to be the way I am. So I was just broadening yourself that way.

Klara: Agree. I have one more question. Dana, actually, on the timeline, which is actually something I love, and I love that you applied it and mentioned it, so you gave yourself 36 hours. How did you choose that timeline? And I like that you actually figure out, okay, I'm going to need this much time to sit on it and think about it. And at the end of the 36 hours, I'm going to make a decision, and you follow through with it. You held yourself accountable. Tell me more about that process.

Dana: Yes, I hate indecision. That's part of my nature. And for any decision that I like to take, there's a categorization of the impact of that decision. And for this type of decision, that is relatively low impact, if you will. In the grander scheme of things, I like to box it within 24 to 48 hours, and then after those 24 to 48 hours, I make my decision, and then I move on. That was the thought process behind it. I had another situation where another individual I also admire and trust gave me advice for a different situation, and I sat on it 24 hours, and I decided, no, I'm not going to follow that advice. It doesn't come naturally to me. Cost-benefit analysis doesn't make sense. I'm, um, just going to, in my head, gratefully thank them for their advice, and they're willing to put themselves out there and just move on.

Klara: Yeah. I love it, and I think that's a fantastic practice for anyone. So kind of what I'm hearing is we all have our own internal clock. I think personally as well, sleeping on something is always beneficial. Like if I can't make a decision at night when I sleep on it, there is a saying that the morning is smarter than the evening. That's in check. I don't know how exactly it translates to English, but I think for me it's certainly accurate finding time to sit in stillness. So sitting down on a couch floor, your meditation below, and force yourself sometimes that's really hard too, for 30 minutes to just sit and see how it feels. I think things typically come up from that. And I know this is a little bit diverging because you ask us for our uncomfortable situation, but, uh, I do think this is so important. And I want to go back to couple things that typically help me to rewire the brain. Have think about the outreach for anybody who may be listening. Because again, I think this is very important and many people struggle with it. Number one, the vast majority of humans have a problem talking about yourself or a concern and bringing up your strength. I think this is something that is just normal and typical. So first of all, we need to acknowledge it. There's just very small percentage of people that it may come, um, naturally and maybe the ones that it does. I would actually caution that you may perhaps follow these people because they may be a narcissist. So I think learning how to talk about yourself, the strengths you bring and be confident about the things you achieved and voicing them is a skill. And like anything else, that needs to be practiced. And the more you practice it, the better you become and it just becomes easier. So practice makes perfect. And the way I go about it is sometimes I try to envision if I hired a coach and the coach knew everything I knew about myself, how would I advocate for Clara, how would I advocate for Donna, how would, uh, I advocate for Anna? Because it's so much easier typically to advocate for others than for ourselves. And so if I take that lens that was writing an email from a different persona's perspective, it is typically easier. And the second point for me, it brought it home. I don't know if everyone can relate to it, but this goes back to athletics. If you're playing any sport, or I think this is also relevant for entrepreneurs, if you have your own business, I think this mindset is very similar. You need to believe and know 100% in what you're doing, why you're doing it, and your values, and you need to trust yourself and the mission and the purpose and the company you're building. I, uh, strongly believe, based on my athletic experience, that you cannot achieve true greatness without truly believing and knowing that you're great, and that's a whole journey. But if I take that perspective and I take that lens into even my personal career life, and I haven't fully been as great in it in tennis, but as one of the lessons, as like, well, if I'm hesitant, it's not going to help me progress. Because hesitation translates to body language, which translates to thinking. So how can I be more certain and own who I am as a human, the strengths I have and the things I have achieved? Because we all have put our blood, sweat, and tears into that whatever it is that we practice, the skills and experience, and the hours of perseverance and focus and dedication and hard work we put in it. Because if we can't articulate it, who else should really know you better than you? So that's kind of my talk there, but let me stop there again.

Anna: Can I comment on it, please? As I was listening to you, two things came to my mind. Number one, how would I say this? Getting to know yourself is a journey and knowing your own capabilities and being comfortable, like, yes, I completely know who I am. I know I'm good at it. I know my full strength and capabilities, and I'm proud of it. Some people may have a delta there, even though they have the capabilities, they may doubt themselves. So it's also where we are on that journey. Have you caught up with yourself? I think not. Until I reached 40, I felt like, yes, I feel comfortable with who I am. I know my capabilities. I've had enough time with myself throughout many experiences in my life journey to know what I'm capable of in most situations, and I feel comfortable backing myself up in many situations, but I know I can confidently go out and deal with them. Now, step number two is, can I boast about it or can I advertise myself or talk about it? That's another question, right? How comfortable are we letting other people know that, yes, I'm really good at this, I can master this, I can rock this? Maybe we know we have the capabilities, but we may not be accustomed to talking about how proud we are of those achievements or our capabilities. So I think those two things came to mind when you were speaking, Clara. We could be either uncomfortable in step number one with who we really are and our capabilities. We may not have really realized our strengths, or maybe we have, but even if we have, are we comfortable in step two to even talk about it with others? I could say from my experience we talked about culture in some previous podcasts. And step number two, I would say I know who I am. I feel comfortable that whatever challenges come me by, as long as I have myself with me, I know I can go head-on and solve them. And I know how to reach out for help if I'm not enough. Uh, but could I confidently talk about my achievements? I don't know. I don't feel that comes naturally to me, given my cultural background in Sweden; it's a very big no-no. You never brag about yourself. We have this unwritten law that you just don't do that an individual should never stand out over the group. You, uh, blend in with a group, and as a group, you make decisions, but you don't make accomplishments on your own. It's only as a team. So maybe that explains why I always come in with a very collaborative approach in almost everything I do. But it's uncomfortable for me to stand out as an individual. Even less, I would say, speak about my achievements. And I don't think that's maybe the right thing, but it's just shaping us who we are. Right?

Klara: I would argue Anna? Um, most cultures would be that way. I think America is maybe a little bit different because it has the business capitalist approach. But I think in America, it just depends on how you say the message. So there's a lot of practice that goes to that. But even in check, I think it's something that isn't practiced, and maybe it should be practiced in school from childhood. Like, if you go into the classroom, introduce yourself, who you are, and allow kids to talk about what they value and appreciate. And actually, now that I say it, I think as kids where we're more likely to talk about the things that we are passionate about, but maybe society and culture steer it in a different way of something that is not appropriate, and we lose it more. And then we actually realize we have to practice it and regain it as we get to professional careers because you need to figure out how to advocate for yourself.

Dana: I want to, uh, just take a moment on what you both have said. Clara, I absolutely subscribe to the notion of trying as much as you can to separate the feelings from the action, feel the feelings to the extent that you can, and then just put them aside. And the practice about what would you advise your friend if they came to you with a similar situation that can help frame how you approach a situation? I think that's great advice. And to the point about practicing your story and your storyline and doing your elevator pitch, I totally agree with Anna. It goes hand in hand with who you are in that particular moment. You're comfortable with your story, with your contribution. And what do you want to be known for? Or are you at the point in your life, in your career where you need to dig deeper and find that meaning, find that story that you want to tell? And funnily enough, I just started reading a book called The Search Finding Meaningful Post-Career World. And it challenges a lot of the assumptions about the concept of a linear career and has a very structured way of finding meaning in what you do. And it's an interesting read so far.

Klara: I love it. And I also want to touch base a little bit more on the uncomfortable. I have the view that everything in life is practice, and as humans, we might be more comfortable with something versus others. So it really takes getting to know yourself or what you are comfortable with and what you're not. Sometimes knowing the why is helpful, but sometimes it's not really. And so I think stripping the why you're thinking about it that way may not really help you to figure out the next step. In fact, I think sometimes we just drown in the whys, and you can keep digging down in the roots as,  is it really going to help me to really understand? So I think what is more important to understand the, uh, what and how? What do I really want to achieve? Is this serving me? Is it helping me to really be going into history and understanding why? But it's more of what do I want to do next. I think the premise of being comfortable, I think as we grow through life, there's a whole bunch of things that hopefully if we continue to grow the right way, you'll find new things you're uncomfortable with. If you just live in a comfort zone, I think life is just boring. You're doing something wrong, or you're playing too safe. And so the beauty of the discomfort is like, oh, this is interesting. I'm, um, sort of uncomfortable with it. Like, what can I do? And then, you practice the discomfort for a while, and you become comfortable with it. And then you go down the road, and you discover a new thing you need to try to practice and you get uncomfortable with it. And so you explore it and practice it, and you become comfortable. I think that's kind of the purpose of shifting your comfort zone. And I guess the thing about being uncomfortable, I don't think you should be comfortable with it. That's the purpose of being uncomfortable. It's doing things even though you're uncomfortable and doing things, even though it, uh, doesn't come naturally. So what, are you going to be scared and run away? Are you going to not, uh, do it because you're worried? Most of the time, the answer when I ask myself the question is, well, that's stupid. There's more growth that we go through when we explore the uncomfortable zone. I think that's where most of the time I've grown. And, uh, we talked about a little bit on the last episode. And usually, the zones of discomfort I've been in it's the ones that others imposed on me. And sometimes, I had no choice. I didn't go through this dark tunnel. But once I geoot out of it, that's what gave me bigger confidence than ever to tackle the next mountain or obstacle that I may not have even seen that is coming.

Anna: There's no growth in the comfort zone, and there's no comfort in the growth zone. Right. And I think probably this goes way back to when we were living in caves. It's probably wired so deep in us that unconsciousness they're telling us, don't go there. It could be danger luring. And it's more of a survival part. Right. But also part of evolution is exploring something unknown and making a discovery. And for those that survived in the caveman times, they actually evolved. And, um, so I think it's part of a personal evolution of yourself to go into that discomfort zone to enable growth. And we're all different. Some people feel completely comfortable just staying where they are, but they're not going to grow much. But if you want to grow, you have to put yourself in situations where you're not comfortable. And the more you practice this, putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation that, you know, on prehanded, it's safe, but it's going to make me uncomfortable. Let's see what comes out of it. You will always get learning, whether it's good or bad, that you can take with you. So you have grown. And some people feel like if they get a negative experience out of it, that's kind of a negative reinforcement, and they're not going to want to do it again. But don't be discouraged by that because that takeaway is a learning that you've made to know which path to take in the future. The same thing we talked about last time. We can't change the past, but we are adding to our, uh, learnings all the time, and we can make better and wiser decisions going forward. So failing is okay, too. As a matter of fact, I see failures as a really healthy thing sometimes because those learnings that come out of failures actually make us grow even more.

Dana: Absolutely. One of my favorite acronyms for failure is First Attempt in Learning. And I love that. It's back to your earlier point, Clara, about, uh, reframing. If you perceive something negative, can you reframe it in a positive way? And does that positive way make sense that you can subscribe to and change your perception of a situation?

Klara: Yeah, I love that first attempt to learning. I think it's great. I agree. It's so hard. It's easier to say when it's not your failure. And then we beat ourselves over the head. And I actually think even with failures, it's important to put yourself in a time box. So what you mentioned, Dana, uh, with your 36 hours, if you put in a calendar, okay, I've failed, and I'm going to give myself 36 or 48 hours to grieve. Like, whatever the timeline you think is appropriate for you beat yourself up over the hat for a day or two, but you need to have an end stop to that. So visualize that and create an appointment and allow yourself the time to complain. And maybe this actually draws on a personal experience. I had a period of time where I had a person who made me feel awful about myself. And I consider myself a very optimistic and very positive person. And that person pulled me into such a dark channel that I only saw negatives. And I was so consumed with how impassable this person's behavior was and how incredibly awful it was that other people didn't see how toxic that person was. And so I went into this spiral that it consumed me. And I talked about this for so long with my internal self, and this spiral took me completely in a dark place. And so what I decided to do, I allowed myself 30 minutes every day. When the thought came up, I put a placeholder on the calendar for a 30-minute appointment time. And I made that agreement with my partner because he was tired of this too, hearing about it. This is my 30 minutes. You can just stand there. I'm going to vent to you. And this 30 minutes is my appointment to talk about anything bad I wanted about that person or how that person made me feel. And what I realized, it was actually really helpful. Because if a negative thought came up during the day and I felt like the victim, that was the worst. I felt like the victim in that situation. And I couldn't figure out how to pull myself out of that victim mode. I think for me, that's the worst thing that you can be in. When that victim thing came up, because I knew that person so well, perhaps we were on a joint call and I knew exactly what games that person was playing. My Amygdala started hijacking during the day, and I would start thinking of ah, spiraling the dark tunnel. And so, seeing this 30-minute window on my calendar, all I had to do is look at my calendar invite. I was like, okay, thank you for notifying me about this danger. I'm aware I know it. Let's talk about this danger. I have an appointment on the calendar at 06:30 p.m. Tonight, you can rent all you want in 30 minutes. It was so helpful not discarding that thought but moving into the right appointment slot. And what I found myself to be is that slot ended up being shorter and shorter and shorter, and it ended up disappearing within a matter of few weeks or months. So probably the first time I ended up running over 30 minutes wasn't probably enough by a few weeks or months. I needed like five. And I was like; I'm over it. I don't need to preoccupy my brain with this awful human. I have better things to do. I have Klara's things to do. I have new opportunities and things ahead of me. I don't need this negativity at all in my life. But I know. It's really hard. It can be really hard, especially if you're in this really high cortisol situation, which I have never been. This was the first time in my life that I've been in this situation, and I literally didn't know what was happening to my body. Sorry for everyone listening, but I was stinky, sweating all day, just walking around. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. This situation was so consuming me. I was hijacking to such a degree that I felt so in danger. I know I was safe, but my brain was just radiating on all fronts of like, fire, alarm, run, go, chase, or go like hide somewhere. And so I had to find a way how to take control of that. If you're in such a high overdrive, it's really hard to disregard or put it away. Right. So there is typically a transition period that will allow you to get back to what do you think is yourself and your positive self. You have to get on a journey to get rid of the negativity somehow.

Anna: So, really, the way you picked yourself up was you coached yourself. Right. It's kind of recursively. Uh, that's a strong thing to do.

Klara: Actually, I have to say. At that time, I hired a personal coach. She helped me guide through the thoughts, and I obviously had close family and friends that tried not to abuse too much. I'm sure you, ah, know what I'm talking about. Kind of going through that transition. You need to surround yourself with a support system and, if you can and have the means, if you're in such a situation, hiring a coach, or sometimes people think therapists; I think coaches might be better. The therapist helps you understand the why, which can be helpful, but may not always move you to the next phase. And so I think if you have the right coach, it can help you do both a little bit, understand the why, but position you to move to that front phase.

Anna: I agree. I was just about to allude to that. Right. In those types of situations, it's extremely challenging to coach yourself alone. So important to have the right support system and have somebody who can have the greater perspectives to navigate you out of that type of situation. Thank you so much for sharing your story and for being vulnerable. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that can resonate. They have one or more examples where they can relate to having been in those type of situations.

Dana: I echo that. Clara, thank you so much for sharing. And I love the concrete tip of setting up your complaining appointment. That could happen to any and all of us, right? For whatever the situation is and time boxing it and eventually getting rid of that. Allow yourself to feel the feelings and then just move on.

Klara: Um, I think it works for everything. Whether it's failure or family, it can be any and all of the above, giving yourself the permission to do that, but putting a time cap on it to move on.

Anna: For most people, I think it feels unnatural to go out in the discomfort zone. Right. But I think the more we practice that, the more we get sort of weaned or learn that it's okay to do that and play with it. So that's something I would encourage. But taking that first step is always the hardest, right?

Klara: Yeah. If I can invite others. Another analogy that I use, if we look at probably the most studied thing that is best for us as humans for longevity and mental clarity and just fulfilling life, there are few things, maybe some relationships, obviously with that. But physical activity is one of the biggest things. We need to continue to move throughout our life, whatever that means. There may be different things when you're 15 or 20 to middle-aged like we are now and probably will look different when we're 65 or 70. But staying active is definitely one of the things that we need to continue to do in order to stay independent and live fulfilling lives. And physical activity is never easy. It's a strain on your system. That's what you're pretty much creating. You're making the body stronger by making it go through good stress. You're pumping up your cardiovascular system. You're driving your heart rate to uncomfortable zones. But that's how the body creates muscle; that's how the body creates immunity. That's the same thing when you have a flu. It specs your cortisol level, it specs your glucose. It actually goes through a stress, which is actually an interesting thing I've seen with, uh, the continuous glucose monitor. When you're not feeling well, it's impressive how the body starts reacting to go through that stress to make you feel better. Then you don't want to get to the high cortisol level to be in that zone probably for a week or a number of weeks or months. Like that's not comfortable or that's not healthy. But if it's an uncomfortable feeling that you can handle and it comes in a doses that you can recover from it, that's how you get stronger. And so, ah, to me, again, take it that physical aspect because that's what I've grown up to be, an athlete. And that's how we trained. You just run harder, you run more. And the more you do it, the easier it gets. And that's how you push the physical envelope. To me, that's very similar how we as humans grow. You just find a fun new obstacle that you feel like you want to tackle and then you learn how to go through it, and it becomes easier and then you uncover a new one.

Anna: Oh my gosh, I just thought of something. Dana, go ahead.

Dana: No, I was just commending that. I love her analogy. What came to your mind?

Anna: When you have a situation at work, your boss asks you to do something you're not familiar with. You can all relate to the feeling, uh, of, oh, my gosh, I don't know what this is. I don't even know this concept, or I don't know what to do and I don't know where to start. We're not uncomfortable. What we just need to be getting ourselves comfortable with is just to throw yourself out there. Because as long as it's unfamiliar to you, it's always going to be spooky. But once you start in one end and you pave that road in getting yourself more familiar with it, the more comfortable it is going to be. And then in hindsight, when you've done something that you didn't know you were capable of, that euphoria or that feeling, adding another component to your bucket of capabilities, that's really rewarding. And again, back to that feeling of anything that's unfamiliar is scary to us. I think that has to do with just how we are genetically set up instinctively. Just our immediate response to things. Just thought I'll share that. And the same thing. Like you say, Clara, you just expand and grow. I love that analogy and I really think of this a lot at work when I'm coaching other people or even sometimes, uh, I coach myself because I'm uncomfortable with certain areas I have no knowledge about. And I'm like, well, I don't have the skills in this area and, uh, yet I'm here to set to do this or that or it's unfamiliar to me. The only thing I focus on is overcoming that big threshold of starting with it. I always like to think in pictures and I picture myself jumping into the deep water and learning how to swim. That water is probably going to be cold and deep and I don't know how to master everything, but I'll have to figure it out. I'll break it down into smaller components and solve them one by one. It's the same experience every time. Once you just take the leap, you actually figure things out. You're taking yourself on a journey and things gradually become more and more familiar and that is very rewarding. So I thought I'll just share that analogy too.

Klara: I love that. Anna. What I'm hearing is just start and, uh, that little bit goes into procrastination or the lack of procrastination, especially the things that we're not comfortable with that's the ones that our brain puts in the side. And, uh, that's actually why I drive my life based on my calendar. I systemize it to a way that everything I got to do, it's on my calendar and I just follow my schedule. Even for to do lists, right. There are always things that you enjoy doing and we tend to prioritize, uh, those, but there's always going to be things that we don't like or do appreciate. So if you just put it on the calendar, and even if you don't know where to start, give yourself the time -  okay, I'm going to invest an hour here, and that's the hour I'm going to think about this problem or this to-do list, even though I don't know how to start. Uh, maybe I'm going to come up with a framework or just notes. But m, it will be the initial idea of starting, and that will perhaps kick-start the process. And I actually often find when I do that, I was like, oh, wow, I totally underestimated myself. I actually know how to solve this. And you just start, and you kind of keep going. And then I was like, oh, I got to finish this in three more hours.

Dana: Clara, uh, you were reading my mind. Remember at the top of the podcast, I said, I have two topics. The second topic was procrastination. For the things that you don't necessarily like, you find uncomfortable, how the heck do you get yourself to get going? Right? Because once you get going, that's it. Your energy, your motivation, your desire to get done with this thing kicks in. But just that initial step of getting started for things that I don't like, I struggle with. And, um, I love this tip of scheduling it on the calendar. And there's this time and space where I said, at least I get it off the, um, mental to-do list—an actual concrete time to tackle that. So thank you.

Klara: Yeah. And look, I think we all are in a work in progress. I think for me, personally posting on social media, I find it's the easiest way to let others know about the content and the wisdom my guests share. And it was so uncomfortable. I still probably only meet 50% of those appointments that I set for myself on the Gander. Those are the ones that tend to disappear first. But the 50% is better than nothing. It's a work in progress, and I continue to actually meet more and more of them as I practice to where it just becomes more natural, and I don't have that bad judgment associated with it.

Dana: Before we wrap up, do you have any tips on procrastination that you would like to share?

Anna: What I wanted to say earlier, to the same point, just throwing yourself out there, I would channel all that energy, and this is hard. A lot of our energy is going to be consumed by fear and anxiety build-up, which leads to procrastination because we just want to avoid it. Try to channel all of that energy into the focus of getting started. That's all you got to think of. I just got to get started. So if you need help with a tool such as this is the time slot on my calendar where I'm going to get started, and there's no way around it. That's a really great way I got to think of out of the box, just how am I going to get started. All of what I try to do is just channel my energies, like, uh, away from that fear. I'm not going to spend my energy on that now. I'm going to spend my energy on how am I going to get started. That's all I think about. And once you're going, it starts to be less uncomfortable, and we want to get away from the discomfort. So I've learned, the more I've practiced, that it's like, getting started is going to get me faster out of that discomfort that I'm feeling. Getting yourself unstuck, that's how I look at it and just my experience.

Klara: How did you get started on your email, Dana?

Dana: Um, I just started drafting it and see which direction it needed to go. And, uh, I liked where it ended, uh, up and just hit send. So I think it's just like taking that first step when you get going.

Anna: How did it feel when you press the send button?

Dana: Relieved. I'm done with this thing. I send it out into the world. Whatever happens, happens. I made the decision, and I'm fine with the outcome, whatever it may be.

Anna: Right.

Klara: I think that's so important. I think going back to our responsibility, all you can control is how you feel about things. And so if you know you have done your best work and you've put in your heart and soul into it and you feel good about it, I think that's when you really should act. Who cares, really, how the other person responds? That's outside of your control. But if you truly persuade it that you're doing the right thing and you want to do it for yourself, whatever that uncomfortable thing is that you feel or you're trying to practice, I think that's so critical. I love that you mentioned Adana. I, uh, think that's the fuel and trigger to yes, that's when we really have to decide, are you doing the right thing for yourself?

Anna: Fantastic topic. I love this topic.