Embracing Discomfort as a Growth Signal
That Uncomfortable Feeling Is Not a Red Flag
A physician I was coaching recently told me something I hear all the time. "I know this work is supposed to help me, but every session leaves me feeling unsettled." She said it like a confession. Like the discomfort meant something was going wrong.
I told her the opposite. That feeling is the most reliable signal that something is going right.
We Trained You to Avoid This
Medical education rewards mastery and punishes uncertainty. By the time you reach a faculty position, you have spent decades building an identity around competence. So when coaching asks you to examine a blind spot or question a long-held assumption, your nervous system reads that as threat.
But being coachable does not mean being comfortable. Psychologist Robert Kegan, whose research on adult development at Harvard has shaped how we think about growth, puts it well: meaningful development requires us to move from a place where we "are" our assumptions to a place where we "have" them and can examine them. That transition is inherently uncomfortable.
Think of It Like a Good Training Load
If you have ever worked with a strength coach, you know the difference between pain that signals injury and discomfort that signals adaptation. A good coach does not let you stay at a weight that feels easy. They push you into the range where your muscles are challenged enough to grow but not so much that you break down.
Coaching for physician personal growth works the same way. The discomfort you feel when a conversation challenges your self-image or reveals a gap between who you are and who you want to be -- that is training load. It means you are working at the right intensity.
The Coachable Mindset Shift
The physicians I see make the biggest leaps are not the ones who stop feeling uncomfortable. They are the ones who change their relationship with discomfort. Instead of interpreting it as "something is wrong with me," they start reading it as "something is changing in me."
That shift does not happen overnight. But it starts with a simple reframe: the next time a coaching conversation or a piece of feedback leaves you feeling unsettled, pause before you dismiss it. Ask yourself whether the discomfort is pointing toward something you have been avoiding. More often than not, it is.
Growth Lives on the Other Side
You did not get into academic medicine by choosing the easy path. You already know how to do hard things. Being coachable just asks you to apply that same willingness to the internal work -- the beliefs, habits, and stories about yourself that might need updating.
The discomfort is not the obstacle. It is the doorway.
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