How Discomfort Sparks Real Growth Fast

Sunday, 13 April 2025 Written by Leo Babauta

For most of our lives, we find ways to stay in our comfort zones — we do the things we’re used to, stay with the work we know, and avoid putting ourselves in discomfort in so many ways.

There’s nothing wrong with comfort — in fact, when we’re struggling or hurt, some comfort is a beautiful thing. The thing is, comfort can be addictive. If we get comfort through food, social media, YouTube, alcohol, drugs … we want more and more of it. It becomes a place of safety that we start to feel we can’t do without.

My encouragement is to let yourself feel at least a little purposeful discomfort each day. By “purposeful discomfort,” I mean that you’re doing something purposeful that expands your life, but that gives you a little discomfort.

Examples:

• Exercise
• Daily meditation or journaling
• Starting a creative project
• Being public with your work
• Marketing yourself
• Going to social events, making friends
• Dating
• Being vulnerable
• Getting your finances or clutter in order

These are just a handful of examples, and for some people, some of these will be very comfortable. For others, those same things would be uncomfortable. We each have our comfort zones.

My encouragement is not to give yourself intense discomfort, but small amounts. And to think of the discomfort in positive ways: think of it as growth, expansion, an expression of your full self, etc.

And then take a break — you don’t have to be in discomfort all the time. With exercise, you want to train and then rest. The same is true of this kind of discomfort training.

What kinds of daily discomfort would move your life forward?

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