The Pain Paradox: How to Use Your Most Valuable Pain to Succeed
What’s your MVP?
In sports, the term Most Valuable Player or MVP is used to describe the individual player with the best all-around performance and the biggest impact on the team’s performance throughout the season. In football, for example, the MVP is chosen by one of the following: the best player on the best team, the player who had the best season, or the most indispensable player.
For this purpose, we’ll look at the MVP as the person who is most indispensable to the team. That person, if for some reason was unable to play, would all but guarantee failure for the team. The MVP is the person whose hand down is solely responsible for the team’s extraordinary success.
At times in our life, we are presented with moments where we have to decide on an action that could have life-changing effects: getting married, having children, getting an education, moving to another country, starting a new job, quitting an old job, etc. These monumental decisions I call Most Valuable Pains or MVPs. These come with a level of responsibility and discomfort that force upon us a certain level of discomfort, but which are also completely voluntary.
These MVPs provide more Rewards compared to Risk. A good example of low risk, high-reward MVP is applying for a new job. Of course, the downside is possible rejection and a hit to the ego, but the upside could be limitless! The possible advantages range from a dependable income that sustains your lifestyle to a career that leads to a lifelong journey of development, growth, and opportunity. Applying for a job is a great MVP because of the low risk and high reward.
If you had to choose one of the most impactful decisions in your life, what would that be?
For me, it was when I decided to become a personal trainer. At the time, I had a passion for fitness and exercise. I believed that a career as a Certified Personal Trainer was the path for me. I remember searching the internet for Personal Training Certifications and ended up landing on one that seemed to be a good fit for me. Primarily because it was around $250 and I could barely afford even that much.
At this point in my life, this was one of the hardest “endeavors” that I had ever attempted. I felt that I was pursuing a lofty, towering goal. Expending any effort at all was serious growth for me back then. Over the next few months, I would sit in coffee shops and bookstores reading, studying, taking notes, and applying it all to truly learn. After a few months, I passed the written test, submitted photos of myself demonstrating some of the exercises, and finally became certified!! I was officially a real Personal Trainer!
Fast forward about a month or two and after reaching out to several gyms in the local area I landed my first personal training job. I rapidly learned that I was a horrible personal trainer, to say the least. My first client almost puked on me within the first 15 min. I’m pretty sure people thought to themselves “What the hell is this kid doing here? He’s going to get someone hurt!” Let’s just say the salespeople weren’t using my services for their sample training sessions.
At that time, personal trainers were only paid for each session they were able to book. So the only way to get sessions with clients was to hang around the gym [unpaid] hoping a customer would ask for a training session or come into the gym to use one from their already prepaid packages. I would just hang out at the gym all day and chat with other personal trainers and gym-goers. Well, one of those gym goers happened to be a girl named Kristin, my now wife. No, she was not one of my clients. She had a way more experienced and all-around better trainer. She was too smart to have me as her trainer (one reason why I married her). After 3 short months, I realized that personal training was not on my cards and I hung up my trainer shorts. Kristin and I ended up going out on our first date about a month later. Fast forward to today, we’ve been married for over 11 years, have 3 beautiful children, and have made a wonderful life together. All because this schmuck bought AND completed a personal training certification course. Low risk but a yet tremendous reward.
This is a perfect example of a Potential MVP turning into an MVP. Going through the personal training course was the most valuable pain I had volunteered myself for. It has brought so much meaning, growth, and joy to my life yet it was relatively easy by all comparisons.
For my wife, it’s safe to say that her MVP was childbirth. We have three amazing children and I can promise you that the process of bringing each of them into this world is probably one of the most painful experiences a woman can volunteer themselves to do.
Having now experienced that pain, would my wife rather not have gotten pregnant with our first to have avoided that pain? The answer is no. Like a majority of parents, having a child was the best thing we’ve ever done. If I were the one that had to go through the child-birthing portion, I guarantee you, we probably wouldn’t have had even one kid! She’s an amazing person that ended up going on to do it a total of 3 times and would have gone on to do it a fourth time if it weren’t so dang expensive!
When you think about it, the pain of childbirth is completely avoidable. Don’t get pregnant! It’s that easy! And yet, most women have purposely been getting pregnant since our earliest history. Why?
The reason is because of all of the many upsides. Yes, there are many downsides such as the cost, time, sleepless nights, health scares, etc., but this is usually a cost most parents are glad to pay to have the unique experience of being a parent. Every stage of a child’s development is amazing, wonderful, exciting, and life-changing. Yes, it can be scary but a child brings a special type of joy that only a parent can experience.
For many brave men and women in the world, their MVP is joining the military. I think we can all agree that serving in the military and having to go through boot camp is no walk in the park. Nonetheless, many veterans would confidently tell you that the success they’ve had in their lives is on account of the responsibility they learned while serving their country. Even though we haven’t had a draft since 1972, we’ve still had hundreds of thousands of people join the military knowing fully well of the pain to follow. Here are some examples just to name a few: Waking up at 4 AM, running or marching for miles upon miles, being yelled and screamed at, being told where to go, eat and sleep, getting deployed overseas, experiencing the fear of going into battle, separation from their loved ones and the list goes on.
Why would someone voluntarily submit themselves to this? Maybe it’s the sense of patriotism or brotherhood, respect, honor, dependable health & dental benefits, stability, college education, or specialized training. Whatever it might be, it’s well known that the effects of their service are long-lasting and most often a key part of who they are now.
So what’s the hardest thing you’ve endured that gave you the most reward? Why would anyone climb Mt. Everest, run a marathon, go to college, start a business, go to the gym, or have a child? Every day, many choose to endure their Most Valuable Pain.
How about you?
