Pondering No pain no gain

I've been thinking about the phrase 'no pain no gain'. I thought I was a person who didn't subscribe to this theory. I thought that I lived my life from a certain comfort zone, at least when it came to physical activity.

I've been married for 17 years and I've watched my husband live those words. Whether he's running, hiking or learning, he is a bit of an 'all or nothing kind' of guy and he pushes himself until it is painful. I've watched him train for all kinds of running races and many times he came home obviously in pain. As he started training for ultra marathons his long runs actually required recovery days. He's run 50 mile trail races where he lost half the skin on the bottom of his feet.

That makes no sense to me, and I don't get any satisfaction out of being in pain, or being incapacitated. But this weekend, at the beach, I found myself pushing it. I found myself taking an extra trip up the sand dunes, walking just a little further or a little faster - and it hit me - I do believe in 'no pain no gain'. I just don't like to push myself to extreme physical limits. But I do enjoy a good solid walk. I enjoy being worn out after a day of hiking or biking. I don't want to be in physical pain, but I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment in knowing I did push it a bit. I enjoy a simple 'tired'.

Well, that's "pain" too. It's just low on the scale. If we're using the standard 1-10 scale, my husband like to push it out to 8 or even 10 periodically (something about pushing the limits and testing himself). I enjoy pushing it to 2 or 3 periodically - a discomfort, something to let me know my muscles got a workout, but nothing horrible or incapacitating.

As I looked around at our lives I realized that this philosophy applies to all aspects of our lives. When we make a phone call that scares us, that is pain. When we learn how to do something new, that can be pain. When we sacrifice the time we would spend doing something we love to market our new business or learn a new software program, that is pain. Every time we move out of our comfort zone, face a fear or make a sacrifice, it is pain.

In order to do something incredible, new and different with our lives, we must push through personal comfort zones, face fears, sacrifice activities or comforts to achieve our goals. When we do this we often push through to 7, 8, or 9 on the scale. Others times we aren't ready for that kind of discomfort so either we do nothing and our lives stay the same, or we push ourselves to 2 or 3 on the scale and make some smaller changes.

And whatever we choose is great as long as it works for us. If you are happy with smaller changes happening in your life then you can stick with a smaller scale of activity, sacrifices and breaking through comfort zones and fears. But if you want big changes, it's time to consider pushing yourself to the high end of the scale for a while so you can reap the rewards.