When Your Mind Says Stop — But You Go Anyway
- Andre Chen
- Apr 19
- 3 min read
Discomfort is not the enemy. It’s the entry point.
Bom dia, mundo. Bom dia, Lisboa. In my beautiful Portuguese!!
There is a story we are all told from a very young age: If you want something, you have to work hard to get it.
Simple. Clean. Almost too clean.
Because the truth is… it’s not just about working hard.
I remember my early days playing basketball at S.L. Benfica.I wasn’t the most talented player on the court — not even close. But I trained. Again and again. Repetition became my advantage. Over time, I became the team’s leading scorer. Eventually, I became captain.
Judo was the same story. I struggled. I failed. I kept going. And somehow, through persistence, I started winning.
Dentistry followed the exact same pattern.
There was a time when I knew my clinical “soft skills” were not where they should be. But I also knew something else: If I stayed long enough in the process — with patience, knowledge, and deliberate training — I could close that gap.
For years, I admired athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan.
Not because they lacked talent — that’s a myth — but because of something far more uncomfortable:
They combined talent with an extraordinary relationship with effort.
They didn’t just work hard.They worked hard when it was inconvenient, invisible, and uncomfortable.
And this is where things get interesting.
Because every single one of us knows that voice.
The one that shows up early in the morning:Don’t go. Stay in bed. Skip the run.
The one that whispers before a difficult surgery or a new idea: This might fail. Maybe not today.
That voice is not a weakness. It’s biology.
Your brain is designed to:
conserve energy
avoid uncertainty
protect you from failure
It is not designed to make you exceptional.
From a neuroscience perspective, it’s the limbic system trying to override the prefrontal cortex. In simple terms: comfort vs intention
High performers don’t eliminate that voice. They learn to act despite it.
And then… climbing taught me something else
Climbing made this concept brutally simple.
You stand in front of a wall. You look up. You see the route. You see the grade.
Today, it’s a 6C+.
And the truth is: You don’t know if you can reach the top.
There are only two ways to face that moment:
You say, “This is too hard.”And you walk away.
Or you make a different decision:
You go.
Because once you start climbing, everything changes.
What looked impossible from the ground becomes… a sequence.Move by move. Hold by hold.
It’s still hard. But now it’s real.
And then there are only two outcomes:
You succeed. Or you fall.
But there is one certainty:
You will never know if you don’t climb.
That’s the lesson!!!!
Most people make decisions from the ground, where everything looks bigger, harder, more intimidating.
But progress only happens on the wall.
Looking back, all my progress followed the same structure:
I wasn’t good at something
I stayed anyway
I repeated under discomfort
And eventually… I became the person who could do it
Not because I felt ready.But because I acted before I felt ready.
There is a pattern I’ve come to recognize — in sports, in dentistry, in life:
Before action: resistance, doubt, friction
During action: focus — a state close to mushin
After action: clarity, strength, control
The mistake most people make?
They trust how they feel before action.High performers trust who they become after action.
But there is an important nuance.
“Just go and do it” is powerful — but incomplete.
Because not every path is the right one. Not every discomfort is meaningful.
The real skill is choosing your direction carefully…and then being relentless once you commit.
Over time, I stopped seeing this as a battle against laziness.
Because it’s not.
It’s a negotiation between two versions of yourself:
the one that seeks comfort
and the one that seeks growth
And every day, in small decisions, you decide which one wins.
In surgery, in sport, in business — the principle is the same.
You don’t rise to the level of your motivation. You fall to the level of your standards under discomfort.
Clinical Pearls
Growth rarely feels comfortable — that’s how you know it’s working
The “resistance voice” is normal — acting, despite it is the skill
Most limits are perceived from the ground, not from action
Confidence is built after repeated exposure, not before
Choose your path carefully… then remove the option to quit
Take-home message
The only guaranteed failure… is the route you never climb.
And the real difference?
Who keeps moving… when every signal in the body says stop.
now i will go climb!!!
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