Throughout his life, Arnold Schwarzenegger has proved to be a jack of all trades, with his multiple ventures across various fields. Yet, he insists he has never been self-made and always had a support system in uncharted waters. When taking up projects, that he felt he had no background in, he adopted a new tool to tackle them all.
One of the key pieces of advice that Arnold often mentions in his articles, including in his recent newsletter, is to be okay with being uncomfortable. He attached a hilarious behind-the-scenes picture from a rehearsal session for the upcoming season of FUBAR. And that preceded what the segment for his ‘Monday Motivation’ contained.
The picture featured him and his instructor striking a pose, hinting at some kind of a dance break in the series. Recalling his previous endeavors with the activity, Schwarzenegger admitted that he has never been a graceful dancer.
However, he intended that experience and conclusion to be the exact takeaway from the segment. He wanted his ‘village’ to deal with uncomfortable situations with ease and grace, just like he did.
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“A lot of people on the internet talk about the importance of having a growth mindset and constantly learning. I talk to you over and over about the importance of being uncomfortable because that’s when we grow and learn.”
Schwarzenegger firmly believed that even the most successful people in the industry got to the top with consistent efforts and falls. With failure comes discomfort, and he wanted people to deal with discomfort with a simple hack that he always resorted to.
“don’t take yourself so seriously — go so far as laughing at yourself…We are working hard, but we are having a good time. We are taking the work seriously, but I am definitely not taking myself seriously.”
Being able to laugh at oneself during failure was the ultimate power move for those who felt discouraged about their journey. Schwarzenegger highlighted that while mistakes and misses were a part of life, the only way to move upward was to look at the bigger picture and put in consistent efforts.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Once Talked About How Discomfort Helped Achieve Goals
Some time ago, Schwarzenegger announced a few changes in his fitness app being rolled out that his village had been requesting for a while. Although he gave the green flag to the updates, he wasn’t happy with how fitness enthusiasts had been dealing with certain aspects of the application.
The Pump App focused on locking the user into a selected workout plan and wouldn’t take genuine reasons into account when one missed a day. When people began feeling demotivated upon seeing the red cross marks when they failed to perform a workout, Schwarzenegger empathized and explained that one needed to look beyond this. To get to a bigger goal, like better health, a few red crosses shouldn’t cause too much discomfort, and if it did, one must treat it as a part of the process.
