My daughter came home from school recently and told me about a “mindset” poster her teacher has on the wall. It says: “A bad brain says I can’t. A good brain says I can’t… yet”. 

I thought that was awesome. I love that she knew the word mindset when she was talking about it. And she said: “That’s what you always tell me, Mom. I can’t do this… yet”. 

But of course I couldn’t just leave it there. I had to ask, ‘Okay, but what do we do after we say that?’ and she thought about it and said, ‘Well… we work on it, right? So that we can.’ 

Exactly. Because here’s the thing: you can’t just say, “I can’t yet” and then do nothing. That’s where people get stuck. They get motivated, they set big goals, they love the quotes, but then they stop. They never step into the slow, frustrating, diligent process that takes you from where you are to where you’re trying to go, and continuing on and on like that. 

Potential is a promise — action is the proof 

All growth starts with you not being able to do something yet. But that is just the start. The realization that while I cannot do this right now, I absolutely can. That is called recognizing your potential. We have all been gifted with potential; it is your job to develop that into something. 

You have to close the gap between potential and results. And we do that with action; stacking reps, building skill, and yes, making trade-offs. This is the part everyone wants to gloss over. They want to keep adding things: I’m walking more, I’m lifting weights, I’m sleeping more, but they aren’t trading off things that are really getting in the way of their results. 

People love to call these restrictions. But you know how I feel about that word. You aren’t 15 years old, and I am not your parent placing restrictions on you because you stayed out past curfew. You are an adult with a desire to have a different outcome than you currently have. 

Which inherently means that some of the things you are doing right now, the things that got you to where you currently are, will have to, in fact, be traded out for different behaviors that lead somewhere else. 

It sounds straightforward. So what makes this so difficult?

People Cling to Comfort 

People will cling to an unsatisfying way of life rather than change, to make sure life feels pleasurable most of the time. 

That’s what keeps most people stuck. It’s not fear. It’s not ignorance. It’s not that they don’t know what to do. It’s that they don’t want to feel even the slightest bit of discomfort. We’d rather choose quick pleasure in the moment than lasting satisfaction. 

Most people who live a very pleasurable life also live a very unsatisfying life. Because even if you aren’t making a conscious trade-off, you are making a passive one. 

You are trading off your health, your confidence, your energy — so that you don’t trade off that immediate pleasure that you are seeking. 

• Food that fills the boredom gaps. 
• Routines that feel easy. 
• Scrolling instead of sleeping. 
• Numbing instead of addressing what’s really going on. 

The crazy part is — most people know it’s not serving them. But they hold onto it anyway. Why? Because it’s familiar. Because it’s comfortable. And because, in the moment, letting go feels harder than staying stuck. 

Staying stuck is the harder option. It just doesn’t feel hard today. It’s the slow, invisible trade-off—the one you don’t notice until months or years later, when your health, your confidence, and your potential are already gone or severely diminished. 

Pain comes first, payoff later

Here’s the reality of change that most people never prepare for: the pain comes first and the payout comes later. 

We all want change, but we don’t want to wait for the result. Anytime you take something out of your comfortable life, you feel it immediately. That’s why it feels so hard. You become acutely aware of what you’ve lost because you’re reminded of it every time you want it. 

So what happens? You feel the pain of the trade-off right away — the deprivation, the frustration, the boredom — but you don’t get any immediate reward to offset it. The reward doesn’t show up for weeks, sometimes months. 

And that in-between period? That’s the challenge. You want the outcome so severely, but at the same time, you’re grieving the loss of something you liked. And that feels like a double hit: no reward and loss on top of it. 

That’s where most people panic. They think something’s gone wrong. But nothing’s gone wrong. That’s precisely what change feels like. 

Discomfort isn’t a problem—it’s proof you’re moving

This is where your mindset matters. You can choose to look at the discomfort as proof that something’s wrong, or you can look at it as proof that you’re moving. If you feel uncomfortable or miss the old habits, good. That means you’re not doing them anymore. That means you’re actually on the way to something different. 

We were designed to pave our way through the unknown. Think about our ancestors — they didn’t have everything at their fingertips. They had to figure it out, create, adapt, and problem-solve. That’s how progress has always worked. 

But now? We live in a world that’s all comfort, all consumption. Everything’s pre-made, pre-delivered, pre-planned. And we’ve forgotten that progress requires discomfort. Instead of stepping into the unknown like we were meant to, we resist it and say, ‘I shouldn’t have to feel this.’ 

But it’s part of the process. It’s fine not to know the outcome. It’s fine to go through something where you can’t yet see the payoff. Even if you put in the work and it doesn’t unfold the way you thought, you become someone different in the process. And that ‘different you’ is always going to have more options than the old you. 

When my husband started his business five years ago, his original plan looked nothing like what he’s doing now. It shifted almost completely. But the only reason he got to see those new opportunities was because he kept moving forward, even when he didn’t know what he didn’t know. 

Same with me — when I first started this platform, I couldn’t see the version of it that exists today. I had to start, build, learn, and then adjust. And yes, I’ve had to go back and restructure things along the way. But that’s the point: you don’t see everything from the start. 

So stop focusing on whether the payoff looks precisely like you imagine it right now. You can’t possibly know that. Right now, all you can do is let go of the things that are keeping you stuck and trust that by the time you climb this hill, you’ll be able to see options and opportunities you couldn’t have imagined before. 

But you’ll never see them if you stay clinging to comfort at the bottom. 

The higher you climb, the harder the trade-offs get. 

Comfort Is the Plateau That Stops Progress

 There’s this line: ‘Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.’ 

And isn’t that precisely what happens in weight loss? At the beginning, when you’re desperate, the trade-offs feel easier. You’re motivated. You’ll give up almost anything to feel better. 

But as you climb — as you lose 15, 20 pounds, as you start to feel comfortable in your body, as people compliment you — the urgency fades. You don’t have to anymore. You’re fine where you are. 

And that’s where people get stuck. They stop making the trade-offs. 

This is why the people who say, ‘I only have 15 pounds to lose’ are often the hardest to coach. They’re already comfortable enough. And comfortable people are usually unteachable. They use their past success as permission to coast. 

The skills that got you here are probably not the skills that will get you to the next level. 

If you want to keep growing, keep changing, keep improving — you can’t stand still. You have to keep trading. And the further you go, the higher the price. 

And it will cost you. ‘The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.’ That’s not easy. But it’s essential. 

Not All Trade-Offs Are Worth It 

Here’s the thing — not every trade-off is worth making. I was watching that Biggest Loser documentary, and if you want to talk about trade-offs, those people went all in. They left their families, moved into a ranch, worked out six hours a day, and lived on 800 calories. That’s sacrifice, right? That’s uncomfortable. That’s discipline. And on paper, it sounds like the ultimate trade-off. 

But here’s the truth: almost none of them kept the weight off. And that tells us something important. A trade-off can feel big in the moment, but if it doesn’t align with who you’re becoming, it won’t last. It’s not sustainable. 

Here’s how I see it: those contestants weren’t really trading short-term gratification for long-term growth. They were swapping one external reward for another. They gave up the immediate gratification of food for the immediate gratification of seeing the scale drop fast, winning money, or getting TV recognition. It was still about chasing the quick payoff. There wasn’t a lot happening inside. 

And that’s the difference. The trade-offs that actually change you aren’t the flashy ones. They’re the daily mindset battles. It may mean trading the comfort of doing nothing for the discomfort of sitting at my desk for seven hours to build something I’m not even sure will take off. And maybe it doesn’t work this time or the last time, but I learn, I adjust, and, eventually, I crack the code. That kind of trade-off builds something real inside you. 

And it’s not just about business. A couple of years ago, I told my husband: yes, I’m the CEO of my company, but I’m not chasing the kind of “CEO life” that means I’m on planes every week, gone from my kids, managing some giant machine. That’s not a trade-off I’m willing to make. I’d rather build something meaningful and organic, something aligned with my values. That’s the trade-off that makes sense to me. 

Because trading off just for the sake of trading off doesn’t always get you where you actually want to go. 

Ten Trade-Offs Worth Making

Here are five trade-offs that are always worth it: 

1. Trade comfort for growth.
2. Stop using food as your safety blanket. Growth is uncomfortable— but that’s where change lives. 
3. Trade immediate gratification for long-term results.
4. Five minutes of pleasure isn’t worth five years of regret. 
5. Trade the fast life for the good life.
6. Stop chasing quick fixes. Build habits that actually last. 
7. Trade addition for focus.
8. You don’t need more supplements or gimmicks. You need to master the basics— protein, movement, sleep, and boundaries. 
9. Trade goods for great.
10. Maybe you’re doing ‘fine.’ But do you really want to stop at fine? Or do you want to go further?

Growth isn’t free. It costs you something. Every trade-off is going to feel uncomfortable. The pain comes before the payoff. And the further you go, the higher the price. 

But that’s what separates average from extraordinary. That’s what separates stuck from free. 

You don’t have to be motivated. You don’t need more information. What you need is to stop clinging to comfort and start making the trade-offs that actually matter. 

Because you can’t stay the same and grow at the same time, you have to give up to go up. And the more willing you are to sit in that discomfort, the more freedom you’ll find on the other side.