“If you always remove the signal, you lose the skill.”
Hey Rollers,
I came across a piece of research this week that got me thinking.
(It’s kind of ironic considering I’ve been elbow-deep in nappies the past month…)
In the 1950s, over 90% of toddlers were potty trained by 18 months. Today, that number has dropped to around 4%, with the average age drifting closer to three years old.
Toddlers have not changed. Their capability is the same, as is their biology.
What has changed is something much simpler: we introduced disposable nappies.
This made dealing with the mess far easier for mom and dad, but with cloth nappies there is also a clear feedback loop for the child. They feel the wetness and, over time, begin to connect an internal sensation with an external outcome. With disposable nappies, that signal is absorbed. The body still sends the message, but the sensation is muted before it fully registers, weakening the connection between what is happening internally and what needs to happen externally.
The system still works, but the ability to read it doesn’t develop in the same way. In this case, the nappy removes the consequence of the signal.
There is a word for this: interoception. It refers to our ability to sense and interpret what is happening inside our body. Hunger, fatigue, effort, stress, discomfort. These signals are always present, but the skill lies in understanding what they mean and how to respond.
The trouble is we have become exceptionally good at removing signals.
We fill any gap with a screen. We rarely sit in silence. We outsource navigation, decision-making, even how we interpret how we feel.
None of these are inherently bad. In many cases, they make life easier, more efficient, more comfortable.
But they come with a trade-off.
They dampen the signal.
And when the signal is dampened consistently, the skill that signal was developing begins to fade.
We remove friction in the moment, but we also remove the opportunity to develop the capability that friction was building. What starts to get lost is not just the experience of discomfort, but the ability to interpret it.
I’ve seen this play out in my own running. It’s easy to fill every session with music or a podcast, to give yourself something to focus on other than the effort. But if that becomes the default, something important starts to slip. You lose your ability to pace by feel and become less attuned to the signals your body is sending you about what it can handle.
That’s part of the reason why so much of my 10 marathons in 10 days last year was done in silence. Not to prove anything, but to stay connected to what was happening internally. I needed to be clear on where discomfort was part of the process, and where it was starting to edge into something else.
Through a Smart Toughness lens, this is where the idea matters.
Doing hard things has never been about blindly pushing through whatever you feel. It has always been about understanding what you feel well enough to respond appropriately.
There is a difference between discomfort and damage, but that difference is not always obvious. It has to be learned through experience, by spending enough time in that space to recognise the signals for what they are. When that ability is underdeveloped, everything starts to feel the same, and the natural response is to step away sooner than necessary.
Understanding where discomfort ends and damage starts is not something you can outsource. It is something you have to build.
I don’t think the answer is to reject the tools that make life easier or to deliberately make things harder for the sake of it. But there is value in occasionally choosing not to soften the experience. In allowing a moment to play out without immediately reaching for something to smooth it over, and giving yourself enough space to feel what is happening and make sense of it.
So what do we need to do?
In some areas that matter, we take the nappy off.
Until next week.
Keep rolling.
Justin 👊
Take Action in 3 Minutes:
Think about one area of your life where you instinctively move away from discomfort.
Not something extreme, just a small, repeated pattern. Filling silence, avoiding boredom, defaulting to distraction, or relying on something external to guide you.
Over the next few days, choose one moment where you would normally smooth the experience out, and let it play out instead. Pay attention to what you feel and, more importantly, how you interpret it.
There is nothing to change yet.
Just notice whether you are reading the signal… or avoiding it.