Run at the Pain

learning pains are what help you grow

Humans are hardwired to avoid pain (I bet you winced a little reading the word).

In business, pain comes in many forms. Maybe you have someone on your team who's underperforming. Maybe your product in its current form isn't as essential to your market as you thought, despite knowing you have a vital role to play. Or maybe people don't totally understand your story when you try to explain what you do. 

Whatever it is, it's a problem. And facing that problem will be painful, anywhere from a charley horse to ramming a brick wall. It's human to want to look the other way and spend your time on other things. 

But you can't stick your head in the sand. Problems — especially critical problems — don't tend to resolve themselves. They fester. 

You have to run at the pain. 

Being purpose-driven includes embracing a learning mindset, which means you start with what’s working well and then look at what needs to be improved. When you avoid problems, you’re leaving opportunities to do better on the table.

Instead of avoiding problems or keeping them under wraps, your team members should feel empowered to surface them in a productive manner. 

That doesn't mean waiting to bring up the problem until they have a solution, but it does mean understanding 1) the difference between surfacing a problem and complaining and 2) that the point of identifying a problem is to improve. 

Leaders don't take four weeks to shelter in avoidance mode. They thank the person who spoke up, get curious to learn all about the problem, and engage the right team members and other stakeholders to tackle it. 

Just like exercise, the more often you do it, the more you tone your muscles and get used to the burn. Soon, you'll be pole vaulting over those brick walls. 

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