Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

The title says it all - - - but what exactly does it mean?

Growing up, I played almost every sport, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, bowling, golf, tennis. There was really nothing I didn’t try. When I got into high school, what I remember most about sports was how much fun I was having, I loved going to every practice and game.

Except for one thing - - The conditioning part of practice, UGH!

Everyone on my team hated the conditioning part. I didn’t understand it back then. I thought our coaches wanted to be mean, punish us, make us run, get us tired/uncomfortable, and get us to the point of just saying “I can’t do this anymore.” I remember thinking at one point during those hard conditioning days, “this doesn’t seem like much fun”, but that’s what having the proper mindset is all about. It really tested my love of the sport I was competing in and help develop some character along the way. Also, the important thing to remember, is no matter how tough it got or hard it was, I never quit.

Now that I am a little older, a little wiser, I realized there was a “method behind the madness” of my high school and college coaches. They wanted to see if we could push ourselves even when we were exhausted and could we stay mentally focused on the task at hand. Basically, “Survival of the Fittest”

Can you keep pushing yourself, when you are uncomfortable? Can you mentally stay sharp when you are uncomfortable?

You know the tired and uncomfortableness I am talking about - -

-bent over with hands on knees

-gasping for air

-lungs on fire

-muscles burning

-heart pounding out of your chest

-sweat pumping out of you

-YEAH, THAT KIND OF TIRED

Nobody likes that feeling or should I say no normal person likes that feeling. It is human nature to move away from being uncomfortable to stay comfortable. To gain an understanding of what that looks like - - if we are using our heart rate monitor devices and tracking this data - - it would look like your heart rate in high zone 4 to mid zone 5 training, aka the orange and red zones.

-So how does this relate to soccer referee fitness?

We all know fitness is a key aspect of refereeing. However, everyone is fit and to separate yourself from others, and truly test yourself, we must push ourselves to the next level. It’s as much mental as it is physical. This is because when we have all the tired and uncomfortableness settling in, our muscles say no, but our brain says yes. We are trying to convince our muscles through our brain to do something they may not want to do.

Obviously, we want to be smart and safe about how we do this, but we want to push our fitness boundaries where most other people are afraid to go.

Why are people afraid to push to that next level?

The answer - by being uncomfortable with those reasons I listed above.

Another way to look at it is by comparison. If we have two different training days. One, is our nice easy run or jog, we know we can go out, kept our heart rate in zone 2 or zone 3, and feel comfortable. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for our active recovery days and less intense days, but we tend to always look forward to those easy days, don’t we? As stated once before, we are comfortable on those days.

Now for the second training session - a higher intensity day or higher intensity workday. What is our response? We don’t look forward to it, we dread it! We almost get nervous or even sometimes sick thinking about it. Reason is, we know what kind of all-out effort it is going to take. We are going to feel uncomfortable throughout that whole session. Now, some referees will go out, do it, and get through it, but never fully embrace it, while others may just skip it all together.

Personally, I have always looked forward to those higher intensity days. Mainly because I have always viewed it as a competition with myself or even my peers. Can I be better today then I was yesterday? Can I out work my competition? Or when other people are struggling with same fitness demands, can I surpass those demands. It all comes down to mindset and work rate.

I have always had little sayings on those tough training days, to help keep me motivated,

"It’s supposed to be hard, if it wasn’t hard everyone would do it, the hard is what makes it great” - Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan - Movie - A League of Their Own.

“If it’s meant to be its up to me” - Anonymous

“Easy when you want to, but hard if you have too!” - Mark Powers - PCS Varsity High School Basketball Coach

It’s always easier to do something when you want to do it, but harder if you have to do it. We should all be striving for wanting those hard uncomfortable days. If we start slowly with getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, we start adapting to those changes (aka getting better conditioned), until we get fully comfortable. Then when we are comfortable at that level, we can start pushing to the next uncomfortable, until that becomes comfortable. Thinking of this way, we keep pushing our own fitness to higher and higher standards. Not only will we be in better physical conditioning shape, but we will have developed a mental toughness.

Those hard uncomfortable days should be welcomed as a challenge. One of the great challenge takers of all time was Michael Jordan. He loved competition and loved a challenge. It didn’t matter if it was big or small, he welcomed it every time. He was able to find a way to motivate himself for any game, any opponent, any practice, any fitness session, etc. He wanted to win at everything, finish first, and be the best, no matter what. One quote about Michael Jordan that has stuck with me to this day is,

“No one has ever wanted it as bad as Michael Jordan.”

This is the kind of mental focus and drive one should possess when it comes to fitness training and pushing oneself when dealing with the uncomfortable. By boosting your own physical and mental strength; to push yourself and embrace the uncomfortable, you will be able to unleash your true fitness potential.