920. Why You Need (Productive) Tension In Your Life.

Let's get it. Today, I unpack the hidden value of productive tension—why it’s not something to avoid but something to embrace if you want real growth. After taking a short break and feeling an unexpected sense of emptiness, I realized that peace isn’t always the absence of tension… It’s the presence of purpose.

If you've ever felt like you're drifting, lacking motivation, or stuck in a cycle of progress and regression, this episode is for you.

Tune in to discover:

• Why feeling “off” might be a signal that you’ve lost your sense of purpose
• The connection between purpose, decisiveness, and daily tension
• How to hold the line when you're tempted to compromise
• Why the first time is the hardest, but every time after that gets easier
• The real reason progress fades (hint: it’s not about effort—it’s about concessions)
• How to pair tension with patience to build long-term strength and resolve
• Why you don’t need perfect conditions—you need purposeful resistance
• The difference between waiting and working while you wait

This episode serves as a reminder that holding tension creates transformation—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Let’s talk about why you need it… and how to use it.

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Welcome to another episode of What's Your Problem, the podcast. If we have not met, I'm Marsh Buice. I'm your host, and there's three problems we all face no matter where you are in life, adversity, uncertainty, and complacency, and you have the skills within. To be able to handle the adversity, embrace uncertainty, never settle again. And those skills all start with a letter C. Communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action and productive confrontation. The better you develop these skills, you'll be RFA. You'll be ready for anything. Alright, do you know everything? No. Are you ready for anything? Yes. The better that every day, man, you work on communicating not only with yourself and others, you work on the curiosity aspect. Asking questions instead of living outta statements, creativity, using what you have, instead of wishing that you had more continuous learning and action. It's not enough to just learn. It's also applying what you learn. Learning is changing your behavior and then productive confrontation. And I'm not talking about. Smacking somebody in the mouth as much as you'd love to. I'm talking about the productive confrontation where you confront some things not only with others, setting the boundaries, but also some confronting yourself. And I guess this really ties in to what I'm gonna talk about today and it's why you need some productive tension in your life. And this was super important to me, man. I did an episode, episode eight 19. Last week's episode or last time's episode, whatever that came out, um, was about patience. And it was a big one for me because I believe that you need patience. But patience, just patience. Sitting on the bench is not the, not the thing that we're talking about. And so this morning in my alone time, man, I started thinking about. You know, I kind of felt like I was just kind of waffling along, man. I felt like kind of lost my purpose a little bit and you know, God spoke to me and was like, you feel purposeless because you've lost that tension. You've dropped it, and to a degree. You need that in your life, but it's productive tension. So I preface that. I don't, I'm not talking about some drama and stuff. I'm talking about the productive, uh, the productive time. Because have you ever noticed, like after taking a long break, which is what I did recently, and, and it felt good at first, but then you just start to feel kind of off. And that happened to me last week. I took a little time off. I slept in, I didn't read, I didn't write, I didn't create, and at first, bro, it felt great. But then strangely, man, I started getting this little, this hollowness inside. It's felt like I, it, it, it felt like I had no purpose. I had no pull. I had no drive. And I realized I didn't need more rest. It's that I had no tension in my life. See, we don't talk enough about how necessary it is to have productive tension in your life, and you think that you want peace and ease and quiet. But what you really want is meaning with meaning. Tension comes along with it. See, when you have a clear purpose, you become decisive, and that decisiveness comes tension. That's a prerequisite. You gotta have that. That's the weight of the responsibility of doing what's right. When it's inconvenient, it's saying no to the easy thing so you can keep building the right thing. Holding the line is what creates the resistance. But see that resistance, that's what reinforces your resolve. It's what builds your mental strength. It's what sharpens your identity. And at first it's hard, but like anything, it gets easier. And I say easier, but probably it gets more manageable because as it gets hard and you hold the tension, you're able to develop the capacity and the strength, so. Yeah, maybe it gets simpler. Maybe that's the thing. It seems like it's easier, but it just becomes more manageable because you now know what to expect. You now know what comes along with it, and what was once hard now becomes your new baseline. At first, it was a ceiling. Now it's the floor, and so it's continuously reinforcing those things. See, on the flip side, when you break a commitment. The first time is hard. I mean, 'cause you have that struggle. You, you're, you're in your mind, you're trying to hold the line and then the wheels start getting wobbling and then you fold. And when you break that commitment, what was hard to break it at first it becomes easier to quit. And that's the trap. So flip it the first time, it's gonna be hard. But hold the line. It's gonna create the tension, but each time after that, you'll get better at it. So you can never get better at something if you cave every time, if you negotiate with yourself every time. If you say, maybe next time, no, next time is now. That's it. Hold the line. Because when you allow these concessions. You invite regression, and with that regression, the progress doesn't disappear overnight. It erodes very slowly, and that's the deceiving thing about it. You don't notice it until all of the sudden, but all of a sudden didn't happen all at once. It happened a little bit over time. You get so far off course and you're like, whoa, wait, what happened? But see, when you can say no and you hold the line, even when it's uncomfortable, you don't just protect your progress. This is how you stack wins. This is how you build momentum. This is how you create clarity in your life. If you think about it often, that discomfort, that tension, it only lasts for a short time. Think about that when you're, when when you're out socializing and you see everybody else doing the things that you once did, and you're like, oh, I wanna blend in. I wanna do what they're doing. But when you hold that line and it creates the tension, do think about that. How long are you really gonna be uncomfortable? An hour or two at the max? But if you hold that line, you hold that tension. It reinforces your commitment, it increases your clarity, and you get to this point where you're like, oh, I'm whipping ass in life. And you don't have to wake up the next day in a deficit and fight all week. Trying to overcome and get back to zero. But think about that. You went from the negative back to zero. Took you all week to get back to that when you could have been at zero, held the line, the discomfort for a couple of hours, enjoyed other things. Enjoy the whole moment, participate. Just don't give your progress back. And if you would've done that. Instead of being back at zero by the end of the week, you could been a plus 10.'cause everything compounds. Think about that. It's tough at first, but the more you do this, the more you can dance with the tension. And I think that's an operative word. Dancing with the tension. So the. Discomfort will last for about an hour or two. It's a brief period of time. Regrets last a lot longer, so you gotta ask yourself, would I'd rather be uncomfortable now or full of regret later? See, when you cave to the cravings, your inner voice, it turns on you. It does. It whispers to you to go ahead, fit in with everybody. But the minute you do it, it's full of guilt, full of shame, full of disappointment. But see, when you hold the line, you hold that tension, those same voices, they begin to line up and they say, oh, wait a minute. Oh you, you're really serious this time. Okay, I get it. And bro, that's the turning point. This is where your identity shifts, and this is when you stop reacting and you just reinforce who you're becoming. People who lack purpose, lack tension. Think about that. They do. People who lack purpose, they lack the tension, and without the tension, you get no progress. See, purpose gives you the direction. Direction brings resistance. Resistance builds strength and creativity. It's kind of like the progressive overload in the gym. You wanna grow, you gotta add some weight, and the same thing happens in life. That tension is what builds the capacity. It's what also sharpens your creativity too, because when you're up against the edge. This is where you get resourceful. You don't wait for perfect conditions. You just use what you already got. But you wouldn't be able to have that. You wouldn't be able to realize that. You wouldn't be able to cultivate that had you not embraced the magic of tension. It is, it's magic. It's actually superpower. Now the last thing I wanna reinforce this with, so you have the purpose, you have the decisiveness. With that decisiveness, you're going to have tension. It's here, but it's good. It's good for you. Lastly, you gotta have patience. Last week's episode on patience was super important to me.'cause many times I get frustrated because I'm not far enough in long in life. I should be at these points. And patience is the capacity, the tolerance that you build and accept that there's going to be delay, struggle, suffering. You're gonna have these things, but you, you are patient. You don't get angry, you don't snap, you don't clear the board. It's because you have a purpose, so you do need the patience. But patience without purpose is just procrastination. True. Patience is when you keep showing up, even when the results are delayed. You trust that the work that you're doing matters, even though it doesn't pay off yet, you hold steady. Because you're not here just for this dopamine hit this instant gratification. You're here for long-term results. You're creating a lifestyle. You have a long-term vision, so you keep at it. You keep writing, you keep building, you keep learning. You keep shaping your behavior. You keep moving even if no one sees it, even when you're tired because you've got purpose. You embrace the productive tension and you've got the patience to let it work itself out. So if you're feeling a little bit off today, you're in good company. I am too. This is why I wrote this. So if you feel kind of hollow, kind of frustrated , maybe it's not that you need more rest. Maybe it's that you need more purposeful tension. Don't run from the resistance. Lean into it. That tension is how you know that you're still in the game. It's the purpose, decisiveness, productive tension and patience. You stack those together. Now you're unstoppable. Let's get outta here. Thanks for sharing this episode with one person who needs to hear it. Also, if you haven't left a rating or review, I'm gonna beg with you. Please do so. What does, what's your problem mean to you? What episode helped you most? Why do you keep coming back? There are millions of podcasts for people to choose from. It means a lot, man, that you give me your time. And hopefully I give something back in return, and if you would just pay it forward, let someone know, Hey, check out this episode and leave a rating or review whichever platform that you listen to. It helps grow the show. All right? With that, keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tense, peace.