Sarahritchie17 With everything that’s happened this year so far and it only being June, I felt like this was an appropriate topic for the times, but I believe that you can apply it in all times too. When you learn to live in a constant state of discomfort, you learn to control your emotions and reaction when good things and bad things happen and are better able to move forward and keep progressing.
One of the many things I’ve learned from being in the Coast Guard is how to live and thrive in this constant state of discomfort. There are always people transferring in and out, and you are constantly working on the next qualification. I assume that’s the way it is in most jobs as you’re consistently striving to reach the next level in whatever field you’re in.
So is living in a constant state of discomfort actually a good thing, and if so, how do you learn to live like that?
Benefits of living in a constant state of discomfort:
- You live with an open heart and open mind:
- You’re able to enter uncomfortable conversations, ask questions, and learn.
- You’re not afraid of embarrassing yourself, and you realize that asking stupid questions is okay sometimes.
- You aren’t as badly affected by setbacks:
- You understand that setbacks are part of the journey and bound to happen.
- You have learned how to get back up even when the thing that affected you was out of your control.
- You embrace change:
- You see how change has challenged you to grow and stretch yourself, how having different supervisors, peers, and followers has shaped your perspective and your own leadership style.
- Accepting the discomfort that change brings allows you to embrace the good things it brings too.
- You know you have to keep moving even after you succeed:
- There is always another level to climb to.
- You don’t stop after you’ve won the Super Bowl because there will be more seasons and new goals to push towards.
- You become happier:
- Instead of letting bad things have a destructive effect on you, you know that they will pass and life will go on and more bad things will happen, but through it all, you’ll be okay.
Steps to getting comfortable being discomfortable:
- Sit in your discomfort.
- This is like sitting with your fear. You have to understand it and get to know it. Pushing discomfort away makes you closed-minded, unaccepting, and anxious for the next time it comes knocking. When you learn to accept your discomfort, you can start working with it instead of against it.
- Work with your discomfort.
- The best way to do this is to educate yourself. There is so much free information at your fingertips. Take your discomfort to the library or to another human being or to the internet. (Yes, I listed those in a specific order.) As you educate yourself on the subject that once made you so uncomfortable, you will feel yourself understanding more and getting more and more comfortable.
- Teach others.
- I find that when I teach other people something I’ve learned, that’s when it clicks for me. Of course, you have to have a good level of knowledge yourself to become a teacher or mentor to someone else on that subject, but once you have that baseline, you can help others grow from their discomfort too. When someone who you are teaching asks you questions, it shows you where you may have room for improvement too, and you can dig into those questions together.
- Find the next thing that makes you uncomfortable.
- The whole point of learning to live in discomfort is to keep growing and pushing yourself to find that next thing to explore. Repeat these steps over and over, and you’ll be surprised how much you learn and grow in the process of just staying uncomfortable.
I know it may seem counter-intuitive to want to live in discomfort, but I believe it’s helped me for the reasons I’ve listed above. Growing is uncomfortable, and I think that learning to be comfortable in discomfort has been a huge part of my personal growth journey. I hope that you may take this lesson from this strange season too.
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Cheers!
Sarah
