Pain is a sign of progress

I once had a performance review where I got an average rating. I was dumbfounded. Throughout my life, I excelled, and I was unsure why I got an average rating. I was doing everything that was expected, coming and leaving on time; I was, in effect, meeting expectations. I then looked around and looked at the people who had gotten exceptional ratings. And begrudgingly, I had to admit, they were indeed exceeding expectations. If I had to rank people, I would rank them higher.

The fact was that it was all too comfortable for me. I had a routine set of going to the office, just doing enough to get by, then leaving the moment the clock struck six, taking the train home, going to the gym and sleeping. Come hell or high water, I never deviated from my schedule. The schedule was important, not the task.

I soon shifted to another organisation. Here, I decided that I had to prove myself, and I would devote the first hundred days to the task. I worked round the clock with the aim of achieving the task. Some days were hard. I was in the office at nine and left it at midnight.

But here is the thing: hard work led to people respecting me. Two different people sent my boss appreciation emails. The hard work led to an outcome, which meant de-prioritising other things in my life.

To achieve anything, to get good at anything, means going through pain. The pain might be the pain of learning a new skill, the pain of letting yourself feel like a fool, or the pain of being unable to do justice to other things. But if you are not feeling pain, that means you are not making progress and just fooling yourself.

Take weight loss, for example. Has anybody lost weight by just eating zero-calorie or zero-sugar meals? Weight loss occurs by calorific deficit. One needs to feel the pain of hunger to know they are progressing.

Or take the example of acing an exam as a kid. Has anybody aced the exam by just studying one night before? (Some do, but I have never.) It takes the pain of studying and understanding the concepts to the core detail to get ahead.

If you wish to progress, pain is a marker that you are on the right path. Embrace it, and do not run away from it because on the other hand, it is success.