Colin Nagy | February 26, 2025
The Productive Discomfort Edition
On training uncertainty, cards, and growth
Colin here. Vaughn Tan is a friend of WITI (see MMD here). He wrote a great book called the Uncertainty Mindset.
I recently discovered that Tan developed an interesting training tool centered around the idea of “productive discomfort.”
In his words:
We avoid discomfort because it is viscerally unpleasant. And then modern life is designed so that we rarely need to leave the comfort zone. So most of us are out of practice at recognizing our fear of discomfort and getting over it. This prevents us from doing productively uncomfortable things. So we become even less used to recognizing and dealing with fear of discomfort.
[The cards are] meant to help you excel when working in unfamiliar situations, facing unpleasant ideas, or just doing something you don’t know how to do yet.
Each idk card suggests something you can do to be intentionally and productively uncomfortable. This can be something you’re reluctant to do, something you dislike, or something unfamiliar—but it is always designed to help you grow and learn as a result. idk can be used repeatedly and indefinitely.
