While It’s Not Popular, Discomfort Is Essential

Discomfort is absolutely essential to our growth as a person. I’m not talking about that “no pain, no gain” kind of gym crap. I’m talking about the real discomfort of pushing your boundaries and challenging your long-held habits and beliefs.

Let’s face it. If you want to change your health, you’re almost certainly going to have to adjust your lifestyle. If your current lifestyle suits your goals, then why haven’t you already achieved them? There are very few things that are more uncomfortable than altering a lifestyle that has become the norm.

if you can deal with this discomfort and overcome it though, not only will you meet your goals. You’ll have expanded your possibilities. Every time you overcome something that makes you uncomfortable, it gets easier to overcome it the next time.

People who are truly successful, and I don’t necessarily mean rich and famous, I mean people who are living the life they desire, are masters at overcoming discomfort.

Discomfort used to be a regular part of human existence. We were subjected to the weather, difficulty finding food, and things that wanted to eat us. But now most of us Americans spend the vast majority of our time in climate controlled settings, few of us are concerned about our next meal, and if one of us gets eaten it’s cause he got stupid with something like a grizzly bear.

As a consequence, often we’re very poorly equipped to handle discomfort. Minor things seem huge and huge things seem insurmountable. And now we have so many ways to get other people to deal with our discomfort for us. So many of us are discontent, but unwilling to be uncomfortable to fix the discontent. It’s easy to be discontent when you’re comfortable. It’s much harder to be uncomfortable and strive.

If you’re pushing toward something and start to feel that discomfort, don’t decide you’re on the wrong path and turn away. Take that discomfort as a sign that you’re taking the right steps toward changing something you want to change.

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