Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. –Mary Tyler Moore

Last month, I discovered my car battery was draining overnight. Why?  I have no idea.  Why does anything go south in old cars?  The first time it happened, I wrangled a neighbor into jump-starting my car.  No problem, ignore it and will go away, right?  But the next morning (shocker!), I had the exact same issue.  The battery was dead as Dillinger.  Instead of fixing the root cause and taking it to a mechanic, I bought a portable Die-Hard battery, just in case the problem did not resolve itself!

The Die-Hard battery was a game-changer—small, powerful, and easy to use. Suddenly, the inconvenience disappeared. I could start my car anywhere, anytime. It was so convenient, I stopped thinking about fixing it.  In fact, I didn’t even bother putting the key in the ignition.  Every morning, I would simply pop the hood, connect the charger cables, and be on my way. I had masked the issue so completely, it felt like a permanent solution.

A month later, I was going through my quick-fix morning routine,  when I noticed my wife glaring at me through the front door.

Uh oh!  Busted!

After a spirited conversation, I finally felt the pain and was properly motivated to truly fix the problem.  Needless to say, the car was at the mechanic the next morning!

But why do so many of us put off seeing the “mechanic” in our own lives?

Comfort Can Be Dangerous

In our work lives, we face all sorts of battery drains.  We add more meetings instead of fixing communication gaps.  The extra check-ins won’t help if the real issue is poor documentation.  We offer free lunches or team outings instead of addressing toxic behaviors in the workplace.  Throwing perks at cultural problems doesn’t weed out the root cause!  We re-distribute work to high performers instead of hiring or training employees for new skill sets.  Overloading our superstars will have a draining effect on the entire organization in the long run.

These are portable batteries—short-term fixes that make life easier today but delay real progress. They give us breathing room, but they don’t build resilience.  When we numb the pain—through quick fixes, distractions, or denial—we lose the signal. We drift into complacency. And eventually, the problem resurfaces, often bigger and harder to solve.

Bring On the Pain!

And the same is true in our personal lives.  We cover overspending with credit cards instead of creating a budget.  Eventually, those bills come due!  We ignore symptoms and rely on painkillers instead of addressing lifestyle changes.  Feeling no pain does not equate to good health.  We avoid tough conversations and hope time will heal what honesty could fix. But these issues don’t resolve themselves!

Resilience isn’t about avoiding pain. It’s about facing it, learning from it, and growing stronger because of it. Pain is feedback. It tells us something is wrong. And it pushes us to act!  When the pain disappears, so does the urgency.

Go See Your Mechanic

As such, we have to look through a different lens.  The goal is not to avoid pain. The goal is to face it, learn from it, and grow stronger because of it. Masking the problem feels easier. But easy rarely equals better. Pain isn’t pleasant, but it’s purposeful. It’s a motivator. It’s a teacher. When we feel discomfort, we should ask: What is this telling me? What needs to change?

When something breaks—whether it’s a car, a process at work, or a relationship—our instinct is to patch the leak instead of replacing the pipe. We create a workaround instead of redesigning the system.

For me, the car battery story is a reminder: quick fixes are tempting and easier in the short-run, but they don’t build resilience. Facing reality does. I should have gone to the mechanic long ago.  Jump-starting my car for 30 days in a row certainly didn’t fix the problem.  And it made for a rather unpleasant conversation with my wife.  And that’s not good for anybody!

The sooner we address the root cause of our issues, the stronger we become.  Resilience isn’t about avoiding storms. It’s about building structures that withstand them. And that starts with facing reality—even when it’s painful.