Pain Driven Change: Why Most Men Don’t Grow Until It Hurts

Speaker: [00:00:00] Most men don’t change when it’s wise. They change when it’s unbearable and when that moment finally comes, they don’t grow. They flee. They quit the job without a plan. They emotionally check out in the marriage. They blow up the relationship instead of doing the work inside of it, they numb, they distract, they start over somewhere else.

Without ever actually upgrading the internal operating system that’s created, the problem today isn’t about motivation. It’s about changing the mental program that decides when you move. Because if pain is the only thing that gives you permission to change, you’re always gonna wait too long. By the end of the episode today, guys, you’re going to understand why your brain resists proactive, why most men stay stuck far longer than they should, and how to stop waiting for life to hurt badly [00:01:00] enough before you finally decide to grow.

This is about learning to move before things break in your work, in your health, especially, especially in your relationships.

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Now let’s get on with the show. The Driven 2 Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving purpose-filled intentional lives. Welcome to the Driven 2 Thrive broadcast where men learn to lead themselves, their families, and their world with purpose, growth, and lasting impact.

This show is for men who are done living on autopilot, done chasing comfort, and ready to build that life of purpose, strength, and intention. [00:03:00] I’m your host, Brent Dowlen. Today we’re talking about why most men don’t change until it hurts, and how to reprogram that instinct before it costs you something you can’t get back.

Most experts have agreed for a long time that people specifically don’t change until a level of discomfort in staying the same or in the same situation surpasses the discomfort of change or doing something about it. That’s backed by a lot of research, but how do we fix it? We’ve all heard the old saying, you can’t lead a horse to wa.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Right. Well, that saying assumes that people are passive. Change this external and motivation must come from paint or pressure, but it’s wrong. People don’t drink because they don’t believe they’re dehydrated or worse. They’ve normalized thirst.

Men stay stuck, not because they can’t change, but because their [00:04:00] internal pain gauge is broken. They’re just so used to life sucking. Here’s the shift I’m hoping you walk away with today. Most men don’t lack discipline. They lack a healthy trigger for growth. They wait for pain with a broken pain gauge to force action.

Instead of training themselves to respond to awareness, ownership, and vision, we’re gonna fix that today because looking back at the last year and what I have encountered with so many men, this is probably one of the most important episodes that I’ll do this year for you guys because this, this is that hidden, that hidden mechanic that.

I haven’t quite figured out how to put down on audio or video, whatever you wanna say today. This is that one I’ve been trying to figure out how to share with you guys [00:05:00] because this is the same trap that is keeping so many mens stuck. We’ve gotta stop waiting for things to totally fall apart and the pain to be bad enough that it demands us to do something.

So this one’s gonna fix that guys. But tune in. It is only gonna take a few minutes for us to get through this, but I promise this will be one of the most important episodes you listened to this year. So the question becomes, why do we wait until it hurts? And here’s the truth that most men never here explain.

Your brain is not designed for growth. It’s designed for survival. From a neuroscience standpoint, your brain prioritizes predictability over progress. Known discomfort feels safer than a known effort, even when the known discomfort is slowly killing your confidence. That’s why a bad job can feel stable and sustainable.[00:06:00]

Why a cold marriage can feel normal, and why mediocre health feels, eh, we can do this. Your brain quietly see, says, at least I know what this feels like. Uncertainty is the brain’s enemy. It’s dangerous. It’s killing a lot of us. Marcus Aurelius said, what stands the way, hums the way. But most men don’t see resistance as information.

They see it as a stop sign. Scripture puts it even more clearly. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Transformation doesn’t start with behavior. It starts with how you interpret discomfort. It starts with your mind, for example, in a relationship, this shows up constantly.

A man feels distance from his wife, but instead of addressing it, he normalizes it. He tells himself Marriage is [00:07:00] hard. Well, yeah, sure it is. Or we’re just busy. Yep, you probably are. Or this is just for a season. Everybody goes through this. Yep. Guilty. Done that one myself. Until one day she’s emotionally gone and he’s mentally checked out of the re relationship.

The conversation turns in, turns into I’m not happy anymore. The discomfort was there long before the crisis. He just trained himself to ignore it and so did she. Real application here is super simple for you guys, but it’s gonna be uncomfortable this week. Ask yourself this really important question this week.

Where have I normalized something that should be confronting me that is a flag I should be paying attention to? Actually, I promise you’re doing it way more than you realize. It’s not because you want to stay in a [00:08:00] bad situation. It’s not because. You like to suffer, it’s because we’re just taught to grin and bear it.

And so we learn to push away those warnings. So if the brains avoid uncertainty and resistance isn’t weakness, why do men wait until pain finally forces them to move? It’s simple. It’s because pain has become the trigger. And guys, pain is a terrible trigger for growth. Pain feels powerful. It feels decisive.

It feels like clarity, but neurologically pain shuts down the part of your brain responsible for long-term thinking. Pain activates the amygdala, the fight, flight, freeze response that we’ve talked about many times on this show. Well, growth requires reflection and intention, which doesn’t coincide with your amygdala lighting up.[00:09:00]

Pain. It makes you reactive growth. Well, that requires you to be deliberate. SCA warned us about this centuries ago. He who suffers before it’s necessary, suffers more than it’s necessary. Simple version of that guy is when you choose to say in it until you hit a breaking point. The escalation is long, usually extreme and unnecessary.

You could have avoided most of that pain if you had acted on the warning signs a long time ago. When men wait for pain, they don’t evolve. They escape. In fact, most men avoid it as opposed to confront the situation because despite what other people will tell you, honestly, even men, most men are really non-confrontational.

They want peace. They want. To be able to [00:10:00] relax and have peace and not have their life let it with stress because they have a lot of stress in their line. And so instead of dealing with it, they leave the job instead of developing the skill, they leave the relationship instead of becoming emotionally present, they start over, but they do it with the same internal patterns already existing in their life and thus the pattern re re repeats itself.

Scripture tells us the prudency danger and take refuge, but the simple, keep going and pay the penalty. Some proverbs, there’s a lot of great sayings like that there. You see, wisdom moves early, but pain moves late in a relationship. Pain triggered, chain looks change. Looks kind of like this. A man finally starts to listen when divorce is mentioned.

He finally becomes affectionate when trust is already eroded. He finally fights for connection. When the bond is hanging by a thread, [00:11:00] it’s not leadership. That’s emergency response. The practical shift here is learning to replace pain with cost awareness. Instead of asking, how bad does this have to get, ask, what’s this costing me right now?

Is this costing me closeness with my wife? Is it costing me respect for my kids? Is it costing my own self-respect? That question wakes up men before the pain has to, but once pain stops being the trigger, something else has to replace it. And this is where most men either level up or stays stuck forever because the replacement, it’s ownership.

Before we move into ownership and reprograming, reprogramming yourself for success. [00:12:00] Guys, if you wanna see the behind the scenes on how this all works, I have four shows, what life is like as a content creator, podcaster, entrepreneur, father, husband, trying to do this crazy world of the creator environment that I live in.

Check out our Patreon with our exclusive podcasts. Behind closed mics, fallible and unfiltered. The messy, honest truth of growing as a man and a content creator, it’s a real unfiltered look at what life looks like in this crazy world I live in, because I know a lot of people like to see this insanity that I live in because trust me, being a creator is in insane.

It also has behind the scenes conversations from various podcasts I do, uh, extended breakdowns, worksheets and frameworks you can actually use, and you can find that link in the show notes below. Now, let’s finish this strong. Guys, we need to reprogram that growth trigger. So here’s the shift that changes everything.[00:13:00]

Proactive men don’t wait for pain, they respond to identity. From a neuroscience standpoint, identity based decisions are far more powerful than emotional based ones. You don’t rise to motivation. You default to who you believe you are. Itus said first, say to yourself what you would be, then do what you have to do.

Scripture echoes this in Proverbs when it says, as a man, thanks in his heart, so he is. When man decides I’m the kind of husband who addresses distance early, he doesn’t have to wait for a crisis to have the conversation that he needs to when he decides I’m the man who leads himself. He doesn’t need pain to force discipline.

So here’s a practical question I want you to sit with. If nothing around me changes for the next six months. Because I know [00:14:00] life can change fast. Who do I need to become to thrive? You have to have that image in your head, guys. You have to break it down and have clarity about who you want to be. You have to see that image for you to get there.

Not escape, not reset, not start over. Become one habit to train. One skill to sharpen, one responsibility to fully own. This is how we start to become the person we want to be, to become the person who thrives. That’s proactive growth. Now, here’s a simple practice called the Tactical Change System to help you start building the habits that you need to get where you want to go.

The I learned from Duncan Brown, who was on one of my podcasts, and James Clear’s book, atomic Habit supports the concept. Take an existing positive habit, something you already do, like making your [00:15:00] first cup of coffee in the morning and convert it into a trigger by taking another action. So take the action, right that.

And that can be guys, that can be, maybe you wanna read more, the person you wanna become, the person you’re becoming reads, the person you’re becoming journals or meditates. Pick the action and. Associate it with something that’s already a positive trigger, right? That might be getting your first cup of coffee, like I said.

Uh, and that’s an example Dun Duncan likes to use. So pick the trigger. When I pour my first cup of coffee, I sit down and read 10 pages. You have to tell yourself the story, but you associate it with something you’re already doing right? When I pour this cup of coffee. I sit down and read 10 pages. Then afterwards celebrate, put [00:16:00] down your book, smile.

Tell yourself, man, I am reading. And that is a, it’s amazing. I feel amazing that I am reading, right? Celebrate it. Like literally force a smile onto your face and tell yourself, great job. Mark it off your to-do list and be like, yeah, I did that. That’s important. This is highly, a highly effective way to start change by taking one habit and turning it into a positive trigger.

Duncan talked about it in the course of dealing with addiction. I’m just converting it into how do you actually start to grow? Same exact plan. Like I said, it’s called the Tactical Change System. I’ll try and link Duncan’s episode down in the show notes. Take a positive habit. Maybe it’s when you brush your teeth, when you first get up in the morning, or when you pour that first cup of coffee, or when you take your first break at work.

[00:17:00] Set an action to respond to that and pair with it. I journal, I meditate, I pray. I repeat an affirmation. I do tin pushups. When you complete it, celebrate smile. That’s important. You need to smile. You’re telling your brain that you’re happy about this. When you smile, tell yourself great job. Cheer yourself on for doing that action.

Do it every single day and you will start form this new positive habit that will get you where you want to go. You don’t need life. Break you to justify change. You don’t need pain’s. Permission grow. Growth whispers long before pain. Screen guys, pain screens and the man who learns to listen early builds the life that doesn’t need an emergency exit to make a change this week.

Don’t wait for the pressure. Choose one thing you’ve been tolerating. Take ownership of it. If [00:18:00] this episode challenged you guys, share it with someone who’s still waiting for pain to decide their future. You can also join our mailing list at purpose-driven men.com for more conversations like this, and it’s always be better tomorrow because of what you do today.

We’ll see you on the next one. The Driven 2 Thrive broadcast, purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose-filled intentional lives.