The Dilemma of Discomfort

You’ve heard it a million and three times: growth happens outside your comfort zone.

But we typically don’t want to be uncomfortable, just like we would much prefer to not sit chilling in the unknown. Because the unknown is uncomfortable.

Every single high-growth moment in my life has come from incredible discomfort, times when I doubted and wrestled and wondered wtf I was even doing. Was walking away the right answer? Was I crazy for uprooting my life? Will I regret this? Will I ever feel on-top-of-the-world again? Is this long-haul risk really a good idea? Should I have said that, like that? I feel exposed and unsure and overwhelmed and underwhelmed and upset and unclear and yet…sorta pumped to be so uncomfortable?

Because even in the rough patches of discomfort, my future self always finds a way to whisper back to me: hang on girlfriend. This is what leads to the good stuff.

Life isn’t always uncomfortable, nor do I think it’s meant to be. Let’s take discomfort’s flip. When things feel yummy and content, there’s a beauty in that. Satisfaction is a lovely thing, especially when it comes to the motions of your life. We don’t always need to be striving and pushing. Said a different way, we don’t always need to grow. Sometimes we need to root down, settle in, relax and unfold.

The dilemma is then, how to know which is right and when? The discomfort of growth. Or the contentment of just being. When do you know it’s time to push past the inertia of “just being”...when does that stillness become stagnation? Conversely, when do you know to lay the sword of discomfort down and just do what feels good?

I’m not 100% sure (sorry!!) But I’m trying to figure it out. I’m thinking about it a lot. As I’ve been reflecting on this – when to reach for discomfort and when to lean back into ease – I’ve second-guessed myself. After long stints of ease, I feel myself grasping for the sharp edges growth. After chapters of growth, I feel myself dreaming of the rounded corners of contentment. And so it goes.

This is the expansion and contraction of life. There’s no “right time” to expand. There’s no “right time” to contract. There’s just whatever time it happens, when it happens, as it happens. When you feel like you want it to be happening.

I guess the real takeaway here, for you and for me, is knowing that no stage is permanent. There’s a time to push ourselves, and there’s a time to rest. There’s a time to accept everything is rough, and there’s a time to receive only that which is lovely. Neither is wrong. Neither is always. Figure out what you need by figuring out if the phase you’re in is teaching you anything. If you’re bored and sedentary, maybe it’s time to shake things up. If you’re burnt out and over drawn, maybe it’s time to ease up.

We don’t always get the choice. But when we do, choose you. And there’s sorta no way to get that wrong. Woman on xx