Comfort Can Only Come Through Discomfort

Discomfort → Comfort

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

1. Life is a Bunch of Habits

Comfort is good, it’s enjoyable.

When you feel comfortable, there are usually two reasons. One, you are relaxing. This includes activities like reading, watching a movie, or playing video games. And two, when it is out of habit. What you do day in and day out.

Comfortable things happen all the time, while discomforting things happen less frequently.

When you learn, you are in a state of discomfort. And once you pass the state of discomfort you can enjoy what you learned and it becomes a piece of knowledge, forever stuck in your brains.

Now, discomfort isn’t always great and beautiful, it can harm us. Things like sitting in an uncomfortable position or doing something because of peer pressure are not healthy things to do.

There are a few things to look for in an activity to see if it is a good pick.

1. You like the activity. Activities that you find joy in aren’t always comfortable and enjoyable. There are ups and downs but between a person who succeeds and a person who fails are the ways they can cope with it. Stick to it and there will be success.
2. They will be beneficial to your health and well-being. This is an obvious one, but it is hard to actually do. We all enjoy eating junk food and sitting at home watching TV. But we don’t actively think about what we are doing while we are doing it. So being more conscious of what you are doing will benefit you.
3. You learning something new. Don’t think of it as learning but more trying. You try something if you don’t like it you can stop but if you do, keep going. It won’t hurt and it might just change your life.
4. Just don’t make any dumb decisions. You can spend 5 seconds, 5 hours, 5 days, or even 5 years (if important enough). Use your brain and don’t get peer pressured.

2. Discomforts Are Once in a Lifetime

Discomforts are like getting a shot. It isn’t enjoyable but it’s good in the long term.

Public speaking is a great skill to have at your disposal. But if you didn’t speak in front of your classmates in high school, do you think you could have gotten to where you are now.

That goes for every activity. We all have time, no matter 5 minutes or 5 hours we can all take advantage of it and do something meaningful. 5 minutes might not sound like a lot, but in the long term it will make a big difference.

Discomforts can also be used as motivation. Activities that you aren’t the best or with a lot of competition are great ways to get started with it because you mini-goals are trying to beat your competition.

To achieve a level of success, a person has to go through discomfort from everyone around. Elon Musk had a rough childhood and throughout his years he was able to create great amounts of discipline and resistance to discomfort.

Embrace the discomfort, it may not be fun or enjoyable but it will build discipline and can be a once in a lifetime learning experience.

3. Discomfort → Comfort

For someone to be comfortable at something, they will need to be uncomfortable at it first.

Here are a few examples:

• When someone first starts eating healthy, they don’t enjoy it and just want to go back to their same old, same old.
• When someone first learns to drive, they don’t know how to do it and feel huge amounts of discomfort before finally being comfortable at it.
• When someone first learns to write, they aren’t confident, don’t know how to get started, but with this discomfort comes comfort further down the line.

To become comfortable with a skill or activity must be achieved by facing discomfort face on until you make it through the other side. Don’t lie to yourself about your progress. Progress isn’t linear and usually, you won’t see success until after a certain point.

Progression is well described in the book Atomic Habits.

Created by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits

Don’t get discourages by your progress because there will huge growth in the long run and no one will ever succeed until they face the discomfort and keep going.

4. Takeaway

A comfortable life is an enjoyable life but a meaningless life. Discomfort makes life interesting and exciting. They are what makes you have the amazing experiences you have now.

Keep taking those moments of discomfort as learning activities and give them your fullest effort.

Disappointment is inevitable discomfort is inevitable, but the difference is whether someone takes the opportunity or not.

So take them and never regret or look back at what you could have done. You made the right choice.