Bored? Pick up your phone. Scroll through infinite posts and videos designed to capture your attention for a brief few seconds prior to moving on to the next one.
When you have done this long enough and get hungry you can click a button on your phone to have a meal delivered to your home in under an hour.
Do you want to order a new pair of shoes? Pull out your phone and click on the app that already has your payment information saved. Select your pick from an endless variety of options and then click order. You have them on your doorstep two days later.
Convenience is ubiquitous.
But at what cost?
This is not a post dedicated to bashing on technology and the advantages it provides us, but it is important to recognize the effects this can have on the way we think and act.
We frequently find ourselves in the mindset of needing to get things fixed immediately, to get what we want as soon as possible. Since we have been conditioned by our world to expect convenience, our nervous system goes haywire when we don’t have it. We often struggle to allow ourselves to deal with discomfort and trust that the results of sticking to the process will come.
As my college cross country coach, Dr. Michael Whittlesey, used to remind our team, we need to “be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
This is where one of the hidden lessons of physical therapy and performance training can help you grow.
Rehabbing an injury is rarely something you can do with one quick-fix treatment. In most scenarios the injury is either 1) something triggered by an underlying pattern of suboptimal movement that takes consistent work over time to fix, or 2) an injury where the tissue damage is great enough to take a long period of recovery to facilitate repair.
In both scenarios, we need to rely on the process of CONSISTENT and INTENTIONAL work towards a goal over time to achieve healing. Only then will you achieve a complete solution for your problem.
If any rehab professional tells you they can fix your pain in one shot, please think twice.
I am in the business of making meaningful, long-lasting change in people’s lives, and I think that an important part of doing that is by taking a look at the problem you are dealing with from a wider lens. In doing so I think you will learn more about the world and see personal growth.