Antifragility: Turning stress into strength

Stress is relative to our capabilities. The more capable we are, the lower the stress a situation will create.

These same capabilities grow by adapting to our past stresses.

So, to avoid too much stress, you must grow by exposing yourself to stress and adapting.

The idea that stressors may be more beneficial than a lack of stressors is called "Antifragility."

"Dui, why don't you play the piano instead?"

I had a bad spell of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu injuries these past few months. They sidelined me for several weeks:

• I popped my elbow in an "Americana" lock
• I dislodged my ribs with a training partner's pressure
• I sprained a knee ligament when sparring

The last injury wasn't serious, but the succession caught all my loved ones' attention. At a recent family dinner, my mother-in-law asked, only half-jokingly: "Dui, why don't you play the piano instead?"

The answer is: because this practice is making me stronger.

Some injuries heal, but honestly, some never do. But when it comes to physical fitness, you won't find someone who's both strong and hasn't had an injury.

Many of the strongest and toughest people carry injuries through their peak performance.

The stress that causes injury is the same that helps us grow.

Avoiding injuries may lead us to avoid stress.

And we'll try to avoid stress because it's uncomfortable, and we want to be comfortable.

But avoiding stress will prevent the adaptation required for growth. And not growing will, ironically, make us more easily stressed.

We grow through adaptation

The problem with avoiding stress is that the ideal amount of stress is not a linear progression; it's a U curve.

Be under too little stress for too long, and our capabilities start to wither:

• We don't exercise, and our muscles and bones become weak
• We don't study, and our intellect starts to fail us
• We don't stick to routines, and our discipline becomes flaky
• We don't work hard, and our tolerance for difficulty disappears

Like a guitar string, humans are made to be under a certain amount of tension. Too much and the string breaks, but too little and the string is useless.

This is important because adaptation is the only way to grow: first, we must be inadequate, then adapt to be adequate.

And adaptation is unbelievably powerful.

The power of adaptation

Humans can become incredibly powerful once adapted. Some feats of adaptation are unbelievable.

As an example of extreme physical feats, people have:

• Swam for 53 hours straight to cross from Cuba to Florida
• Ran 2 marathons a day for 41 days straight to cross the Appalachian Trail
• Lifted and carried over 1,000 lbs in deadlifts and yokes for Strongman competitions
• Held their breaths underwater for 24 minutes and 37 seconds

This applies to other categories of human endeavor, including intellectual, emotional, and other skills and competencies. Through adaptation, we can perform incredible feats.

But without adaptation, we can't do it. There's no growth.

Without growth, we'll wither. Without stress, our challenges will become even more challenging.

You're fated to be uncomfortable, so embrace it

There is no being comfortable. You can't be comfortable.

There is only 2 types of being uncomfortable:

1. You're either pushing yourself to be uncomfortable and growing
2. Or you're not pushing yourself and not growing, and your life challenges will make you really uncomfortable

The strength athlete is uncomfortable carrying weight, and the sedentary person develops back pain and can't walk.

Or the coasting employee is reassigned or laid off and has difficulty finding and working on his new team or company.

Or the undisciplined person has to start taking medicines on time and can't muster the willpower to build a simple routine.

Our challenges are relative to our competence level. What's easy for you is hard for somebody else.

So, the way to have an "easy" life is to be better, not to have easier challenges. Our competencies will adapt to the challenges we have faced, big or small.

It's tempting to want smaller challenges, but instead, you must strive to be bigger than the challenges.

Antifragility: "Please handle carelessly"

In his book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb captures this growth through stress precisely through this neologism.

In his view, the opposite of fragile isn't resilient but rather something that is best when put under stress. Or, as he calls it, antifragile.

As the [Fragile] package can be damaged during transportation, you would stamp “fragile,” “breakable,” or “handle with care” on it (in red).

Logically, the exact opposite of a “fragile” parcel would be a package on which one has written “please mishandle” or “please handle carelessly.” Its contents would not just be unbreakable, but would benefit from shocks and a wide array of trauma.

The fragile is the package that would be at best unharmed, the robust would be at best and at worst unharmed. And the opposite of fragile is therefore what is at worst unharmed.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile (Incerto) (p. 45). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The author later suggests that innovation and other sparks in performance come from necessity and its overreaction.

How do you innovate? First, try to get in trouble. I mean serious, but not terminal, trouble. [..]

Yet in spite of the visibility of the counterevidence, and the wisdom you can pick up free of charge from the ancients (or grandmothers), moderns try today to create inventions from situations of comfort, safety, and predictability instead of accepting the notion that “necessity really is the mother of invention.”

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile (Incerto) (p. 57). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Humans are also Antifragile, and we must be put under pressure to do our best.

Even if it is hard.

Or rather, because of it.

Embrace your antifragility

The sooner you embrace that growth comes from challenges, the better prepared you'll be to deal with the big and unavoidable challenges life will throw at you.

Here are some ways to start embracing your antifragility:

1) Incrementally increase your stressors

Waking up 15 minutes earlier, increasing the load in your workouts, going without internet for 30 minutes, reading that difficult book.

Get in the habit of adding things that challenge you to your life.

2) Be ambitious and really try to make it

Anybody can set ambitious goals. The hard part is really trying to achieve them.

It doesn't matter if you achieve your ambitious goal or not; you'll grow the same either way.

What matters is whether you're giving it your all in trying to achieve it. That's the hard part.

3) Use benchmarks

Find people who are better than you at what you're doing.

Some people close to you will be better than you are at some things. Some people around the world will be much, much better than you are at those things.

Add these people to your routines: run with your friend who is faster than you; spar with your toughest training partner; paint with your talented painter friend.

Check the best in the world at what you do online to break your mental limits. Read biographies of people who achieved what you're trying to achieve.

And try to do what they're doing, to see how you do.

Adapt and grow

It's uncomfortable to put ourselves under stress, but we're antifragile. If we don't put ourselves under stress, we won't adapt and grow.

So instead, choose to grow by exposing yourself and adapting to your stressors.

This way, you'll become better at what you do and you'll be able to handle bigger and bigger challenges.