The Myth of Pushing Through: Why Growth Must Start With Safety
Imagine you’re setting out on a long-anticipated road trip. Your bags are packed, the tank is full, and the excitement builds as you pull out of the driveway, ready for the journey ahead.
But at the first stop sign, panic grips you. Your heart pounds, your breath shortens, and suddenly, this ordinary road sign feels like an impassable barricade. Instead of pausing, looking both ways, and continuing on, you slam the car into reverse, drive straight home, and hide under your bed.
Now, picture the same road trip—but this time, when you reach the stop sign, you simply do what it’s there for. You stop. You check your surroundings. You move forward with the confidence that the road ahead is still open to you.
This is the difference between navigating life with a regulated nervous system versus a dysregulated one.
A regulated nervous system interprets road signs as they are—guidance, information, moments to assess and adjust. A dysregulated nervous system, on the other hand, misreads every sign as an emergency, a reason to turn back, a confirmation that the journey was a mistake in the first place.
For too long, the personal development industry has sold us the idea that growth means “getting comfortable being uncomfortable.” But real comfort with discomfort isn’t something you can force—it’s the byproduct of resilience, regulation, and trust in your own capacity.
Dr. Stephen Porges, founder of Polyvagal Theory, explains that a sense of safety is essential for taking risks. When the nervous system perceives safety, it allows for exploration, adaptability, and growth. But when it registers a threat—whether real or perceived—it moves into survival mode, making it nearly impossible to process challenges productively. No amount of mindset work or positive thinking can override a system that is fundamentally dysregulated.
This is why the "push through fear" approach doesn’t work for everyone. For those whose nervous systems are already taxed—whether due to trauma, systemic barriers, chronic stress, or past experiences of harm—this approach can do more damage than good. Instead of fostering growth, it reinforces cycles of fear, depletion, and shutdown.
Rather than teaching people to override their internal alarms, we need to help them expand their capacity to navigate uncertainty safely.
True growth isn’t about throwing yourself into the deep end and hoping you don’t drown. It’s about building trust with yourself so that when you hit a stop sign—or a detour, or a yield—you can actually discern whether to pause, proceed, or take a different route.
The road ahead is wide open. The real question is: Are we equipping people to navigate it—or just setting them up to stall out in fear?
The Push-Through-It Mindset is a Recipe for Harm
In self-improvement spaces—whether in coaching, leadership development, or even therapy—people are often encouraged to override their hesitation, face their fears, and take bold action. The assumption is that resistance is just an internal obstacle to be conquered.
And yet, many people’s nervous systems are already in a state of depletion or survival—not because they aren’t "brave" or "ready," but because they live in systems that erode safety to begin with.
This is especially true for:
People who have faced systemic barriers, discrimination, or social exclusion, which keep their nervous systems in a near-constant state of hypervigilance.
Those who have experienced misused power differentials, from toxic workplaces to harmful coaching and therapeutic relationships, making it difficult to trust authority or guidance.
Survivors of trauma, abuse, or chronic stress, whose nervous systems have adapted to prioritize survival over risk-taking.
Individuals navigating health conditions or disability, where energy and resilience are limited resources that can’t be wasted on unnecessary struggle.
In these cases, telling someone to "lean into discomfort" isn’t just unhelpful—it’s potentially retraumatizing.
If your system is already running on empty, pushing harder doesn’t build resilience—it reinforces patterns of exhaustion, shutdown, and self-doubt.
Yet, in many coaching and leadership spaces, this harm is ignored or even celebrated.
The Alternative: Expanding Safety Before Expanding Capacity
The solution isn’t to avoid growth. It’s to stop expecting people to transform without first addressing the conditions that make growth possible.
Instead of pushing through, we need to focus on expanding our zones of safety—gradually increasing what feels possible without forcing ourselves into dysregulation.
Back to the driving example.
A regulated nervous system doesn’t panic at a stop sign. It doesn’t misinterpret a “merge ahead” sign as an emergency. It can take in information, assess the conditions, and decide the best way forward.
But when your nervous system is already overloaded, exhausted, or feels unsafe, you don’t have that luxury. Every yield sign feels like a trap. Every detour feels like failure. Every red light feels like proof you aren’t strong enough.
To truly create sustainable transformation, we need to stop bulldozing through these signals and start working with them.
What Real, Sustainable Growth Looks Like
Here’s what it means to build true capacity for change:
Recognizing nervous system cues for what they are. Not every discomfort is a sign to push forward. Sometimes, it’s an invitation to pause and regulate before proceeding.
Creating real-world safety to reference. Growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The more your mind-body-spirit system can locate safety in your relationships, environment, and resources, the more it trusts you to take on new challenges.
Honouring pacing as a strength, not a weakness. Expansion happens when your system has the capacity to hold it—not when you force it past its limits.
Differentiating between ‘edge’ and ‘harm.’ There’s a difference between stretching yourself and over-stretching yourself. A culture of ‘pushing through’ rarely honours this distinction.
This isn’t a softer approach to growth. It’s a more intelligent one.
Because what’s more sustainable?
Someone who forces themselves through discomfort for a moment, only to crash later?
Or someone whose resilience is so deeply integrated that they can face challenges without their system going into survival mode?
If we want to create lasting transformation, we need to stop glorifying burnout and self-abandonment as bravery.
Rewriting the Story of Growth
In self-improvement spaces, we’ve been taught to see stopping as failure. But stopping isn’t always failure. Sometimes, it’s wisdom. Sometimes, it’s integration. Sometimes, it’s the thing that allows you to actually move forward—on your own terms.
A truly coachable, resilient, powerful person isn’t the one who ignores every sign along the way.
It’s the one who reads the road, takes in the signals, and chooses their path with clarity and confidence.
The next time you feel the urge to push through, ask yourself:
Am I actually ready to proceed? Or do I need to build safety first—so that when I do move forward, I can do it in a way that lasts?
Real growth isn’t about how much discomfort you can tolerate.
It’s about how much safety you can create—so that your expansion isn’t just possible, but inevitable.
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