325: Breaking Free From Comfort Culture

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0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host, Courtney Townley right now. As she breaks down the fairy tale health story, you have been chasing all of your life, indispensable action steps, and lasting change.

0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. This is your host, Courtney Townley. As always I know there’s a lot of spaces in places you could be right now. So the fact that you’re tuning into this Podcast, you’re spending a little time with me, it is greatly appreciated. And I hope it is worth your time today.

0:43
Now, before we get started, I want to let you know, if you are a regular listener of the show, you probably have heard of The Consistency Code Crash Course, it’s a course that I run multiple times a year to really give people a taste of the framework that I use inside of my private coaching sessions and inside of my Rumble & Rise community to help people move their life to higher ground.

1:08
So if you like what you learn on this show, and you are looking for a way to kind of take that to the next level, we are running The Consistency Code Crash Course, again, May 22 through May 26. And registration is opening in just a couple of days. So if you are looking for something to help you level up, and you want to travel with a community of women who are looking to do the same, and you want to have a week under my guidance, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that registration opening, we will be announcing it of course on social media, all of my email subscribers will get emails telling them that registration is open. So there’s lots of ways to make sure you reserve a spot.

1:51
And four things that I teach inside The Consistency Code framework that I just want to kind of mention at the outset of this Podcast today, because it’s really relevant to what we’re going to talk about today.

2:02
So the the four pieces of the framework are number one, I always encourage women to develop a practice of awareness. Because when we do not have awareness of how we’re moving through the world, obviously that can create a lot of obstacles to getting to where we want to go. So a practice of awareness, which can look like a whole lot of things is really important. It’s a really important starting place. In fact, I would say change is impossible without it.

2:31
The second practice that I teach inside the framework is the practice of organization. And this really focuses on the strategy that you are using to try to create change in your life. Because really, having worked with women for so many years, I see two big problems with the strategy that people are choosing number one, they’re not choosing a strategy, they have no strategy. So they’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks and it’s changing all the time. So they’re not being consistent with anything. But the other thing that I see often is that we are choosing strategy that massively overwhelms our brain. And an overwhelmed brain is just gonna say, no, let’s stay in the cave and stay safe and not do anything that exerts effort. And obviously, change is not going to happen in that space. So the strategies you’re using are a big deal.

3:20
The third practice that I encourage women to develop is the practice of follow through. And clearly this is a space where most people rumble hard, we have the best of intentions, we create a beautiful plan. And then we don’t follow through with the things that we said we would do for ourselves. And that’s really what I want to talk about today.

3:39
But I will tell you the fourth practice that I teach inside the framework, The Consistency Code, is the practice of realignment. Life is going to throw you a lot of curveballs, it’s going to give you a tremendous amount of opportunity to get misaligned from the direction you intended to go. And so we have to have ways of pivoting ourselves back quickly. And not waiting weeks, months or years to do that work.

4:04
So let’s just kind of back up to the practice of awareness. Because the thing that I really want to lean into talking about today is breaking free from comfort culture, which I believe is a really big reason we don’t follow through with the things that we want to be doing for ourselves. We are so comfortable in our lives. We are living in a world that is providing us with so much comfort, that getting uncomfortable on purpose is becoming a lost art. And it’s the only way to change your life. You’ve got to get uncomfortable. You don’t have to suffer. You don’t have to be in pain, but you do have to be willing to get a little bit uncomfortable. And I have done lots of podcasts on this topic.

4:45
This is certainly not the first time we have talked about discomfort. But I do want to lean into it more specifically today in regards to how grit affects the aging process. So Before I go there, I just want to give you a few examples. So we don’t like to get uncomfortable on purpose. But the truth is that a lot of people that I work with are already living in a very high state of discomfort, which is why they’re hiring me in the first place.

5:19
So for example, it may be a person who has no energy, they are carrying excess weight, they are having trouble sleeping, they are constantly feeling overwhelmed. That is the level of discomfort they are currently in. But then they don’t want to lean into the discomfort that will change all of those things. They resist exercising and eating better and going to bed earlier on time, which absolutely is uncomfortable, if you don’t have a practice of doing it. It’s new, it’s unfamiliar, it’s going to create friction. But there’s a trade off on the other side, you start having more energy, by leaning into that discomfort, you start losing a little bit of excess weight, by leaning into that discomfort, your sleep cycles get better, you start to manage your overwhelm a little bit better.

6:10
So one discomfort here clearly just keeps you stuck and in a spin cycle of where you’ve been for a long time. And the other level of discomfort is absolutely going to change you. Another example is I work with a lot of people who are very dissatisfied in their careers, super unhappy, hate going to work don’t like the environment. And they struggle to lean into the discomfort of changing their place of employment. And I get it right, there’s a lot of fear wrapped up in that we have bills to pay, we need to put food on the table.

6:45
Certainly at mid life, we have a lot of thoughts about changing careers and what that might look like. But here’s the truth, we can keep the discomfort of staying in a career that we hate, which come on how much time are you spending working? Most people a lot. It’s where we spend the majority of our life. And to spend the majority of your life in a place you don’t like being what is that doing to your health and well being probably not anything good. So we can stay in that cycle of not enjoying our job, that’s a level of discomfort. Or we can lean into discomfort on purpose of finding a new job, maybe even finding a new career. So both afforded us the opportunity to lean in to discomfort, but one has a benefit. On the other side, the other one just keeps us stuck.

7:32
One more example. I work with a lot of people very frustrated about the gradual physical and mental decline that comes with aging. But they’re often also really resisting adopting behaviors that will slow the aging process. So we can stay in the spin cycle of being frustrated and irritated and sort of in that mindset that it’s you know, aging, the byproduct of aging is just that I fall apart doesn’t really get you anywhere, it just it kind of accelerates the decline of the aging process. Or we can start leaning into things that research shows us time and time again, actually slow the process of aging. No one is saying that you’re not going to age.

8:23
But we can absolutely affect the quality with which we age, we can affect our health span over the period of our lifetime by taking some simple measures consistently, and there is discomfort in that. Moving your body regularly when you have not been moving your body at all is uncomfortable. eating real food that your body notices as real nutrition is not easy to do when you have lived in a world of processed food for decades. Getting yourself to bed earlier when you’ve been a night owl your whole life and I do believe some people are biologically wired to be night owls, but they also are working between the hours of nine to five. So it being a night owl is not really conducive to how they’re living their day life. And that’s really uncomfortable and difficult to change that way of living. Not saying it’s impossible, but it requires a willingness to lean in.

9:25
So I had been deep in the throes these this past month of developing a masterclass for my Rumble & Rise community this is actually the what we’re leaning into in the month of May. It’s a masterclass all about powerful aging and what that means and how we can actually accomplish it. And doing the research for this masterclass, got me super fired up about the connection between grit and its relationship to the quality of the aging process. Because there is a lot of connection.

10:02
And this research and getting ready for this masterclass also coincided with a trip that I recently took to go see my dad back in Texas. And I have shared stories of my father many times and incredible, amazing, remarkable human. And he has made the decision to caretake his wife, for the past 30 years, my step mother has Alzheimer’s. And they work with some of the top Alzheimer’s physicians in the country. They live in Houston, which has an incredible, a lot of incredible medical resources. And she has she is at home. And my dad does have the help of nurses that come in during the day to help care for her. But my father is also 76 years old, he’s been doing this for 30 years, he has really put his own self care on the back burner. And it is really remarkable to me how quickly he is aging as a byproduct of his life, right, he have not taken care of himself of having a really high level of stress for a long period of time.

11:08
And so I just feel so really, again, fired up and passionate about this topic of what it means to age powerfully and what we can do, really to age well. So let’s talk about grit for a second. Because grit obviously is a word that I am very, it’s very close to my heart, it is a big part of my brand. It’s half of my brand, grace and grit. So I talk a lot about grace, I talk a lot about the power of compassion, and curiosity and self respect, and ultimately, someday, hopefully self love. And I believe that those things are almost impossible without grit.

11:51
So what is grit? Really, there’s a lot of different ways of explaining it, you probably have a very clear understanding, but let’s just make it clear from the outset here before we go deeper into this conversation. So Merriam Webster defines grit as a firmness of mind or spirit, and unyielding courage in the face of hardship, or danger. So I love that first part, especially a firmness in mind and spirit to me that really speaks to resilience.

12:27
And Angela Duckworth, who a lot of you may know is is a psychologist who wrote the book grit. And she defines grit as perseverance and passion for long term goals. And let’s just imagine like a well lived life as a long term goal. How do we stay persevering and passionate about that.

12:55
So really wrapping it up. Grit is a practice of meant mental, physical and emotional resilience. Again, grit is a practice one that can be developed at any time, at any age and stage of life. The really good news is grit, like almost every human quality can grow. So regardless of where you are in relationship with grit right now, there’s a lot of hope. If you want to change if you want to strengthen your grip muscle.

13:34
So what’s grit got to do with aging? Well, I think a few things. Number one, I think the the byproduct of aging in itself, does in part make us more gritty in some ways. Because we have more life experience. We have lived through more life hardships, we are hopefully a lot wiser in our later years. And all of that can serve us really well in terms of facing hardship and challenges. But I would also say and this is really what I want to be kind of leaning into today is that aging also demands that we really flex our grip muscle often and much.

14:27
So aging as defined by the National Institute of Health is the time related deterioration of the physiological functions necessary for survival and fertility. So the time related deterioration, we are all going to age we are all going to deteriorate over time. There is no avoiding that, of course unless we die in early death, but assuming that you are aspiring to live into your age These 90s and beyond, there will be a time related deterioration that is coming. The World Health Organization says that age is a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity. And it is a growing risk of disease and ultimate death.

15:22
Yeah, I would say it’s a pretty finite, like you are pretty much going to make it across the finish line to death. We all are. But again, a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity. Now, we would hope it’s gradual, all of us would hope it’s gradual. But for a lot of people, and I would say more people now than ever, it’s becoming a very accelerated process. Because of the way we are living our younger years, and because of the way we are moving into our older years. So all this to say that aging is, of course, a natural decline, we are going to decline.

16:06
If we want to slow the rate of how fast we’re declining, we have to do things that make us uncomfortable. We have to pursue discomfort, on purpose, we have to flex our grip muscle a lot. And it looks different for all of us. Because certain behaviors come easier to some of us and more challenging to others. So I know people who love to exercise every day, that’s a non issue for them. But their relationship with alcohol is super complicated. And it’s a much harder thing for them to lean into discomfort around not drinking. I know people who love eating well, right, they their their diet is fantastic. And where they struggle to lean into discomfort is learning Stress management techniques.

17:04
So just because there’s one area of maybe your health paradigm or your your health enchilada, as I like to call it, you might have one dimension of that really sorted out. But hopefully, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know that I’m a big proponent of this idea that health is multifaceted. It is so multifactorial, and so we have to take all the factors into consideration, because it’s the total load of stress in your life, that is going to affect you on a cellular level, and ultimately accelerate the aging process. So we always need to be really aware and curious about the spaces and places in our life that are bringing in unnecessary stress.

17:52
But what I really want you to hear is the relationship between grit and aging is that we need to apply effort consistently in order to age in a powerful way. And to me, that’s really what grit is that consistent effort piece. So I just finished reading out live by Peter Attia. If you don’t know Peter Attia, you should definitely know him. He has a Podcast called The drive are called Drive. It’s not the drive, but just drive. And he’s a physician who is very well known for really focusing on the science of longevity. And I highly recommend this book to everybody. It is so good. He talks he does such a beautiful job about breaking down the diseases that we are all really kind of predisposed to in modern day culture that can really take us out in the aging process and take us out much earlier than necessary because of the way we’re living our lives.

18:53
And one of the things I really really appreciate about Peter Attia, his philosophy is he is constantly emphasizing that if you really want to age powerfully if you want to be kicking ass when you’re 85 years old, you cannot afford to be average when you’re 50. Because think about it, we have to have a long runway ahead of us to allow for the gradual mental and physical decline. That is the aging process. But most people at midlife have no ramp they have no off ramp for that declined even happen because they’re already at rock bottom.

19:39
So I want to offer that really our biggest barrier to to applying grit. Our biggest barrier to aging powerfully is really comfort culture. It is it is choosing the discomfort of staying the same of not doing anything to improve your life, to develop resilience, versus leaning into this discomfort of doing hard things on purpose in dedication to living a long and healthy life, and hopefully 1000 other reasons as well.

20:17
So think about it in modern day culture. We don’t have to move. We can sit all day long. And by the way, like I can completely relate this one is not is not it’s not just for people who work in the office. I moved my business online a decade ago. And right now, if you’re watching this video on YouTube, you can see that I’m standing I stand all the time when I teach, because it is so easy for me to sit on my butt all day long. And I feel terrible. I mean, literally, my sit bones start to hurt, my energy is out the door. Like it just it’s not, it’s not useful to me. So I have to find creative ways of inserting more movement into my life. But we drive places instead of walking, we sit instead of standing.

21:08
I don’t know if you a lot of you saw the movie Wally, it was a Pixar movie. That was I think it came out like literally 15 years ago, I think was around the time my son was born. But it was about this robot living on earth and all the people had gone away, and they were living in space. And when when they did the scenes of the people living in space in this giant spaceship, they’re all in kind of moving seats, nobody walks. They’re all eating junk food. They’re not moving. They’re all unhealthy. And I’m like, wow, whoever created that was obviously sort of foreshadowing the direction that we were headed.

21:46
But Katy Bowman is an incredible biomechanist. If you don’t know her, she has so many incredible books, one of them being dynamic aging. And I followed her for many years, I highly recommend you follow her online, she has lots of great tutorials and things. But she talks a lot about just even our day to day living tasks have been so overly simplified for us that it’s actually to our detriment, we don’t have to crack knots, we don’t have to do the work of breaking a knot out of a shell, they’re already pre shelled.

22:21
We don’t have to do the work of chopping up garlic because now we have a garlic press. And on and on it goes we have so many gadgets and gizmos that have made life easier that it’s actually costing us our health and well being. Think about the coordination that you have to have in order to chop something up, or to break a knot open versus just you like either having it already done for you. Or using like one simple hand motion to create the same effect.

22:56
In modern day culture, we don’t have to eat real food. I mean, I’m pretty sure in a grocery store, there’s far more processed food options, than there are whole food options. So we don’t have to move. We don’t have to eat real food. We don’t even have to think for ourselves, in the age of all this information, all of these apps, all of these programs telling you what you need to do to create a certain result. We don’t even have to use our own brains in order to create results in our life.

23:31
Now, I would argue that if you want to create sustainable results, that’s not true. But a lot of people are looking for the quick fixes. And it’s much easier to follow a you know 1234 plan a plan that is outlined for you versus thinking your way into behavior change.

23:49
In fact, Esther Perel, if you know her, she’s a psychotherapist does a lot of work around relationships, again, an amazing one to follow. But I just saw a video of hers online, and it was so great. She was talking about the advent of all these apps we have on our phone, all these pings reminding us to go to meetings, dating apps, you know, apps telling us exactly what to eat to elicit a certain response. And ultimately, she was like, you know, this is actually coming not just at our cost to our brains, but it’s also coming at a cost to our willingness to take risks and make mistakes.

24:23
Because that’s where our identity is actually shaped in making mistakes and learning from them. And then changing our method moving forward. We’re not doing that anymore. Because we’re getting all of this information from the outset. We’re not having to think for ourselves. And we don’t even have to physically connect with people anymore. I know people that their entire existence is online. I would say of course, again, I can relate to that. i My Existence online is far more profound than it was a decade ago. But I find myself having to make a conscious effort to get out out and connect with people in the flesh, build my community, have a support network, maintain my friendships.

25:07
And we just did a Podcast all about that it was Episode 323, called Loneliness at Midlife. So if you get that, if you really relate to that, and you need more with that, go back and listen to that episode.

25:19
So aging well actually requires that we create friction and challenges for ourselves on purpose. That’s what exercise actually is. Whether you’re doing cardio or strength training, or flexibility training, or coordination, training, or balanced training, all of which is so important to slow the rate of the aging process. All of that is choosing discomfort on purpose. If you’re not getting uncomfortable when you’re training, there’s no way you’re not changing. Right?

26:00
I think I’ve used this example many times on the show, but my husband when we go skiing, if I don’t fall, he always says to me, you’re obviously not skiing hard enough, because you’re never making mistakes, Courtney, and he has a point, right, I’m staying in my comfort zone and nothing changes in that zone. I know That’s so cliche, you’ve heard it 1000 times. But I cannot say it.

26:22
So creating friction and challenge on purpose. Applying grit, as we age is also how we keep our brains healthy. learning new skills. Gosh, my dad, I had him get an Apple computer a few years ago, because he had this archaic, I mean, I don’t even know how old this computer was, but it was going to die, it was definitely losing its life. So I had him buy an Apple, because I feel like I’ve used them for a long time. And I feel like they’re pretty user friendly. Some of you may argue with me on that. But I also knew that they had a pretty robust way of helping him to dictate rather than type, because he has essential tremors. And so he has a really hard time typing on a keyboard.

27:03
But all this to say, it really became apparent how resistant he was to learning new skills. And he all all his language was, you know, I hate computers. And, you know, I would never get on a computer again, another day in my life if I didn’t have to. And yet, he also chooses to pay his bills by computer and communicate with his family by computer. So there’s a little bit of conflicting interest there.

27:30
But I’m telling you this because the way we talk to ourselves about learning new skills and having to change ways of doing things, is is going to have a huge impact on whether or not you’re willing to do those things. And so my dad, of course, does not have to use a computer, but it’s going to make his life even smaller. And he doesn’t need a smaller life. He is so isolated. As a caretaker, I think so many caretakers are. And you know, his computer is actually a touch point. It is a way of connecting with other people for him.

28:04
And so it’s worth leaning into discomfort of learning a new skill, which by the way, isn’t just about connection. It’s also about building your brain health. It’s about creating new neural pathways, which we know we can develop new neural pathways at any time, the brain has this amazing ability to constantly redesign itself and rewire itself and continue to grow. This is neuroplasticity. But we can’t stay in the comfort of not learning new things and never being a beginner if we want that advantage.

28:38
So we have to be willing to lean into discomfort we have to be willing to apply grit, flex our grip muscle in order to age well. And that work starts now. In fact, the younger the better. So if you are 60 listening to this, please do not be disheartened that you will not receive massive benefits from starting your work now if you’re not doing anything right now. Okay, fine. My phrase is always so what now what? Now that you recognize that what are you going to do moving forward? Because like I told my father on this last trip, if you do not start doing some things to turn this ship around. It’s it’s not going to get better on its own.

29:22
We have to apply grit have to So comfort culture we all know is permeating us at a younger and younger age. Look at our kids. Right? Our kids are playing video games all the time. They’re watching Netflix all the time. They’re, you know, everyone’s winning in sporting events in a lot of a lot of schools. And I would just argue that like none of this is helping us to lean into discomfort on purpose. It’s making us more comfortable and more safe and safety please.

29:56
I’m a huge proponent of safety. We’ve done a lot of episodes on this show about nervous system health. And as as as much as nervous system health is important, we also need to be willing to lean into healthy amounts of stress, discomfort, even failure in order to keep growing and evolving as humans. Angela Duckworth has a great quote about this, I pulled it out and it says this, I worry about people who cruise through life friction free for a long, long time, before encountering their first real failure. They have so little practice falling and getting up again, they have so many reasons to sit with a fixed mindset. I see a lot of invisible vulnerable high achievers stumble into young adulthood and struggle to get up again. I call them fragile perfects. Sometimes I need a fragile perfect in my office after a midterm or a final. And very quickly, it becomes clear that these bright and wonderful people know how to succeed, but they don’t know how to fail.

31:12
And, you know, I see this so much in coaching. I guess I work with a lot of midlife women who are wrestling with perfectionism. And we can certainly argue that something’s not worth doing unless I do it perfectly. Like that is an option to have that argument. But most of us know that we’re never going to be perfect, theoretically, we understand that. And yet, we still hang on to that belief.

31:37
It is also an option to remind yourself that you know what all I can do right now. And all I expect of myself is to do the best I can with what I currently know and what my current capabilities are. And whatever happens on the other side of that is, is going to be beneficial to me. Because I’m either going to move the needle of progress towards the direction I want to go, or I’m going to learn about what isn’t working, I’m gonna learn how to fail and I was caught failing well, right, I’m gonna learn how to fail well. So failure is not final. I’m not using failure to stop living my life, I’m using failure to accelerate my life.

32:25
And I do believe that grit, again, because it’s that capacity to persevere, is a really big part of getting up and trying again, and being willing to run experiments and try new things and learn new skills, and being willing to be a beginner, regardless of your age. In fact, I’m just going to say that I think it’s even more important as we age. So breaking free from from from comfort culture, a few things like a few steps to just keep in mind.

32:58
Number one, we have to expose the truth of the discomfort that you are currently choosing. And this goes back to what I was speaking to at the very beginning of the Podcast, a lot of people are living in a tremendous amount of discomfort. But it’s not the kind of discomfort that is actually beneficial to them. So are you choosing the discomfort right now of staying the same? In a space where you aren’t happy, you aren’t fulfilled? You aren’t satisfied? You aren’t energized? You aren’t thriving? Or are you choosing the discomfort of really moving your life to higher ground? Only you can answer that question. Once you expose the discomfort you’re currently choosing, you get to decide how you want to move forward.

33:51
So if you’re someone listening to this today, who’s like, man, you know, I really am in this area of my life, whatever that area might be relationships, health finances, I really am choosing the discomfort of staying the same. I’m super uncomfortable. I’m not happy with how I’m showing up. And I’m not choosing anything different. I haven’t been to this point. If that’s you, do not beat yourself up. Do not apply like the shame ointment right? Do not marinate in sort of regret. And you know the self flagellating, don’t do that. You expose it simply so you can decide do I want to stay on course with that? Do I want to keep deciding that? Or do I want to make a new decision? Do I want to make the decision of actually moving my life into a better space which is also going to be uncomfortable and I know that ahead of time and I am actually choosing it.

34:53
Now my hope is that you choose that option that you don’t choose the option of staying in discomfort that doesn’t get you anywhere But you lean into the discomfort of moving your life. So assuming that you choose the discomfort that actually fortifies you, we then plan for small doses of daily discomfort on purpose. And that could look like so many things. I know everyone’s brain always goes to diet and exercise. So let’s not actually go there. Like there are so many ways of creating friction or discomfort in your life, that has nothing to do with diet or exercise.

35:37
And remember, when I say discomfort or friction, I’m talking about things that are beneficial to you. We’re not just creating discomfort for the sake of creating discomfort, we’re creating discomfort to get a benefit on the other side. So we’re living in an age where everybody is taking cold baths and cold showers because there’s, you know, a lot of evidence that it’s supportive of the human body in a multitude of ways.

35:59
Now, I don’t think it is supportive for everybody personally, however, that is a way of flexing your grip muscle, right of choosing discomfort on purpose, to get a benefit on the other side. I know a lot of people who track their steps, I said, I wouldn’t mention exercise, but let’s just say movement, right?

36:21
A lot of people track their steps. 10,000 steps a day, I have a client in the Rumble & Rise community who just celebrated two years of consistent 10,000 Step days, which I thought was amazing, awesome. And I don’t know how old she is. I’m sure she’s gonna tell me after she listens to this, but I know she I think she’s in her mid 60s. So what an awesome thing. And there’s so much benefit to that. The weather is not I’m sure compliant every day, especially she lives in the northwest. I’m sure there’s days she doesn’t feel like going she has other things she’d rather be doing. But she has chosen every single day to lean into that discomfort, which actually affords her comfort on the other side.

37:09
Another sort of conscious discomfort that I really encourage a lot of women to to actually lean into, is doing nothing for 10 minutes. And you would think that I was asking people to cut off their right arm. But the reason this is such a powerful discomfort to choose is because we are so used to being so busy, and always doing to the point that we’re never resting, We’re never getting into our parasympathetic nervous system, we aren’t getting to know ourselves, we aren’t asking ourselves how we’re doing, we’re never checking in, we aren’t aware of how we’re moving through the world, because we’re never making time for that.

37:51
So leaning into the discomfort of just being with yourself doing nothing for 10 minutes a day, can create so much amazingness on the other side. So then once you choose consciously what little friction, you’re going to insert into your daily life in tribute to moving your life to higher ground, you got to manage the hell out of your brain. Because you can just expect that every single day, you’re going to have lots of reasons not to do the thing.

38:26
And here’s really the bigger truth, you have been in a habit for so long of choosing discomfort that doesn’t serve you that it’s just your default mode. So of course, your brain is going to go there, because it’s easier, your brain has practiced that for a really long time. So by choosing to lean into discomfort on purpose, which is very different than what you’ve been doing, there’s going to be a little resistance or a lot of resistance around that.

38:56
So we have to remember why we’re leaning in in the first place. Why am I pursuing discomfort on purpose? For me, I think it’s just my stage of life and kind of what’s currently going on in my life. I am so committed to the things that create friction for me physically, because I really want to age well. Not so much for vanity reasons. Although that would be nice, too. Right? I definitely want to look great as long as I possibly can. But I want to live well. I want to dance my face off as long as I possibly can. I want to be able to travel with my kid and go have adventures together as long as possible. I want to open my own jars and drive my own car and live in my own house for as long as possible.

39:45
So again, going back to Peter Attia is thinking right and so much of what his research shows, and he has so much research you guys. If I want to live that way when I’m 80 and 90 years old. I have to be above average now. So really spend some time thinking about why, what is your WHY for consciously and purposefully leaning into discomfort.

40:13
And then the final thing I’ll say here is keep a victory log, keep a log of the ways in which your intentional discomfort is serving you. Wow. You know, by by leaning into the discomfort of going to bed earlier last night, I have so much more energy today. I’m feeling so excited about my day, I had a great workout because my body had more energy available. When I acknowledged the benefits of leaning into those discomforts that I have chosen, it makes me want to keep doing them.

40:49
So like I said, I am doing an entire masterclass on this topic of powerful aging, its relationship to grit. And there’s so much more baked into the class than I can really talk about here. But I just want to let you know, because if you are someone who really loves this Podcast, Rumble & Rise takes everything to an entirely different level, there is so much more education than what I’m able to provide on the show, there is so much community opportunity to connect with other women who are wrestling with the similar similar things, there is so much opportunity to receive coaching and additional support. So it’s just a really incredible space. I’m so proud of it. And we’re opening for registration again next month.

41:29
So like I said, at the beginning of the Podcast, I’m offering The Consistency Code Crash Course, which is kind of our gateway into Rumble & Rise. So if you’re someone who’s been on the fence about joining this community, you want access to master classes like this, and there’s a lot of them, there’s so much goodness in there. And it’s all organized for you on a lovely private Podcast channel. Make sure you register for The Consistency Code Crash Course, again, registration is opening in just a few days. So make sure you’re on my email list or keep your eyes peeled on social media because we will absolutely be letting you know when the doors open.

42:03
But that course is a really great introduction to the Rumble & Rise community at large. And it really just gives you a framework for applying the types of things you will learn inside of the community. So it’s really kind of the prerequisite that I have for people wanting to join Rumble & Rise. So check it out.

42:23
And of course, if you’re someone who’s done this course in the past, you’ll be able to participate again, because that’s just kind of our thing is you can come back and do this course as many times as you need to because it’s not a one and done thing. It’s a constant recycling of this framework that is going to help you throughout the rest of your life, not just for a period of your life.

42:41
So that’s it my friends, that’s all I have for you today. I hope it sparked something in you. I hope it got you fired up as well about aging and grit and all that the the power you do have in the aging process, because you really do have a lot of power. Sure, a lot of things are gonna come along that you cannot control. Life is uncertain, and we can never complete we can never eradicate that uncertainty. And yet, we can maintain so much power within that uncertainty based on how we’re showing up in our lives, how we’re parenting our brain and the choices that we’re making every day.

43:19
Have a wonderful week. I’ll see you again soon. Thanks so much for listening. Take care.

43:30
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story. And it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort and with a little grace and grit anything is possible.