Become Friends With Discomfort

When it comes to discomfort, you may need to forget everything you have always believed or perceived it to be.

From the time we are born, we are continuously taught that discomfort is something negative and a thing to avoid, and in today's world, constantly avoiding discomfort is extremely easy. 

However, what if I told you discomfort is something you should not only seek, but enjoy?

Many things have contributed to me becoming a better version of myself, but not many are in the same ballpark as doing hard things and increasing my tolerance of discomfort.

It’s one of the biggest obstacles that needs overcoming in order to go from who you are now, to the person you want to be.

In a world full of 30-minute ab workout videos and how-to-get-rich quick videos, be the person that enjoys the discomfort that's involved with becoming better. 

Why Discomfort?

If you’re looking to improve in any domain of life, you’re going to have to experience some discomfort.

There is an unavoidable, necessary and worthwhile period of discomfort you must go through to get to where you want to be. Whether you want to be fit, healthy, smart, rich or happy, you’re going to have to experience the required burden of feeling pain along the way. 

By avoiding discomfort, you’re agreeing to remain within the compounds of your comfort zone, by doing so, you sign the death certificate of the person you could become. 

There is no growth that comes from the comfort zone, and there is no worthwhile life without growth, meaning by constantly avoiding discomfort, you’re choosing a worse version of pain, which is to live a life of continuous misery. 

By seeking out discomfort, and enjoying it, you’re choosing to be someone who is continuously growing, always levelling up. 

The good thing about seeking discomfort is our tolerance for how much we can handle is always increasing too, meaning the more we do the more we can handle, and the more we can handle means achieving better things.

In the example I gave earlier, if getting abs and becoming rich were quick and easy, people would no longer want them, the value attached to these things is only so due to the level of difficulty it requires to get them.

Therefore, to achieve anything of value, you’re going to have to experience discomfort, and if that’s the case, you might as well enjoy doing it.

 How To Befriend Discomfort 

Everything we do can be viewed as a way of avoiding discomfort, even though we see them as wanting pleasure. 

Do we give in to eating the chocolate cake because we crave it, or because we’re avoiding the discomfort of looking the other way? 

Do we give in to the comfort of our sheets because they're comfortable, or because of how difficult it is to get up? 

Are we always on our phones because of how addicting they are, or is it because we’re avoiding boredom?

The reason I make this point is because if you want to increase your tolerance of handling discomfort and eventually become friends with it, then you should begin to see these as opportunities.

By starting with the small things, you can work your way up slowly without overwhelming yourself, this not only decreases the chances of you quitting or relapsing, but it slowly builds self-belief in terms of how much difficulty you can handle. 

When it comes to achieving your goals, believing that you're able to endure the difficulty is arguably just as important as believing you have enough skill and competence to achieve them.

Once you’ve experienced what leaning into discomfort can do to you, becoming friends with it is easy, you’ll start viewing it as something to enjoy instead of something to avoid, as you've personally experienced what it can do.

Start today, start small, and keep finding increasingly harder things to do, until you look back at the current version of yourself and smile at the difference. Then, go do more hard things. 

Actionable Steps 

Nothing is worth learning or reading unless it converts into taking action.

One of the best ways of chasing difficulty is exercise, whether it’s lifting weights, doing some form of cardio or both. It’s something you can continuously increase in difficulty but also has a net positive effect in many other ways. 

My personal favourite is something you can do every day, it takes a couple of minutes and is easily implementable, which is taking cold showers. If you’re able to do a cold plunge, even better, but taking cold showers is an extremely efficient way of conquering the mind. It also comes with the added bonus of feeling great afterwards too.

Dieting and meditation are also great ways of constantly being faced with discomfort. 

Less practical but more influential ways include forcing yourself into situations that you’d rather avoid, going to that social situation, applying for that job, and asking that girl out. 

There has even been an online trend of people filming themselves talking to strangers to teach themselves and others the importance and benefits of facing discomfort. 

So, starting today, go become friends with discomfort and change for the better.