Why is Doing the Uncomfortable Thing Positive?
Growth comes only from leaving our comfort zones.
As I’m writing this, I’ve reached the end of my third foray to Farpointcon. This sci-fi con in Maryland has allowed me to meet and hang out with other like-minded geeks. As a guest author, I also get to sit on some cool panels and get an hour at a table to sign and sell books.
Despite being an actor in HS, a DJ in college, and serving as a court herald in my medieval organization – and speaking publicly in front of hundreds, sometimes – I’m more introverted than extroverted. Ambivert is a fair approximation for me.
I have never attended this con with anyone. My wife doesn’t come with me, and I’ve never brought any friends along. This means I have an entire weekend among mostly strangers. That can be really uncomfortable.
Even the couple of people I speak with regularly while I attend the con are naught by acquaintances. Thus, a great deal of the time I spend at this three-day con is either alone, among strangers, or otherwise outside my comfort zone.
Despite this, doing this uncomfortable thing is extremely positive for my overall life approach.
Why and how does that work?
You can’t grow from your comfort zone
Modern society is obsessed with comfort. Arguably, this obsession is to our detriment.
Why? Because when you get too comfortable you become complacent. Complacency leads to discomfort. That’s because humans need to experience things. We are ultimately meant to live. Living involves having experiences – both good and bad – and growing and changing.
Not long ago, I postulated that the meaning of life stares us all in the face, virtually mocking us for not recognizing its simplicity. What is it? The meaning of life is TO LIVE.
What does it mean to live? It’s not simply a matter of existing, of being half-present, of just surviving. It’s about thriving. Having experiences, learning things, meeting people, doing things, and the like. Unfortunately, this means there will be pain and bad things. However, that’s just a part of the life experience. Living isn’t always comfortable, and that’s okay.
Growth comes from experiences. Some are tangible, others intangible. There are good, bad, and uncertain experiences. Everything you do can and experience teaches you something new. All the new things you learn will enhance your life and help you grow and change.
Thus, if you remain in your comfort zone, you lessen your growth. However, this can and will lead to uncomfortable things.
You might ask – why do I need to grow? For starters, because change is the one and only constant in the Universe. Then, because you are always changing, inside and/or outside your control. Hence, you evolve, change, and grow, no matter what you do. It’s an inevitability of life.
Finally, actively growing is empowering, and opens you to all kinds of potential, possibilities, and options.
Becoming comfortable getting uncomfortable
This is just like any muscle. The more you work it the stronger you get.
Every year I attend this con is the equivalent of lifting weights. I am building muscles – mental and emotional muscles. These are some of the most difficult muscles to work. That’s because you can’t see them often and you can’t show them off like strong biceps to others.
It is equally important that you work and grow your mental, emotional, and spiritual muscles like you would your physical ones. This also applies to endurance. Most of the physical benchmarks we set can also be set for our mental, emotional, and spiritual selves.
This will be uncomfortable. That’s largely because you are stepping into the unknown. There is no certainty in the unknown save uncertainty and the unknown.
This reminds me of the famous FDR quote,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Fear takes many forms. Mostly, however, what we fear is discomfort and suffering. Nobody likes to be uncomfortable, and nobody likes to suffer. However, more often than not, we blow the potential for suffering way out of proportion to any actual suffering we might experience. That also gets applied to discomfort.
Yet getting uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily equal suffering or discomfort. All it truly is is leaving the known, familiar, and comfortable – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and/or physically. To do so with greater ease is achievable by employing active conscious awareness. That’s mindfulness.
Getting mindfully uncomfortable
The first step in the process is to identify what you desire to change. It can be big or small. For me, this is where discomfort starts. For example, despite my excellent cardiac health and physical endurance, I’m growing increasingly concerned that my excess weight represents a potential for future health issues. Considering how to address this and take the initiative to make some changes is uncomfortable. Especially because food has often been a source of comfort for me.
The first step is mindfulness around this topic. That, however, begins with acquiring conscious awareness of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. What am I thinking about my weight? What and how does that make me feel? Now, what do I intend to do and what do I or don’t I do with that? Just thinking and feeling this out is a step away from my comfort zone. That’s because it points me in the direction of the unknown and uncomfortable.
How will this make me feel? Can I maintain any changes I make? Am I willing to do some hard things and cut certain things I know aren’t good for me out of my diet? Can I get comfortable doing the uncomfortable?
The only person who can answer these questions is me. Mindfulness can only be practiced by each of us individually. Yet we often skip this step and go straight to action of some sort without consciously checking in first with our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Hence, a great deal of unnecessary discomfort gets associated with change.
Change and the unknown can be scary. Yet they don’t need to be. This is where your approach comes into it.
The power of non-toxic positivity
More than maintaining a positive attitude or positive thinking, when actively doing something – tangible or intangible – positivity is a tool of empowerment.
This is not some end-all-be-all notion. This is specific to the approach you’re taking. Take my approach to going to this con, for example. Being among strangers, even like-minded ones, on my own, is uncomfortable, but it empowers me. I get to share my expertise on the panels I’m on and open the way to make new connections. That is a positive approach.
When you choose to get uncomfortable, taking a positive approach isn’t about denying the negatives that exist. It’s about, as my example above, working with and through them.
Another example. I love food. Yet I know that I’m eating larger portions than I should, ingesting too many processed foods and too much sugar. Despite how it makes me feel to eat, the after-effects are concerning. I get to decide if I will choose to get uncomfortable and take action to change my dietary habits. Doing so will lead to my clothes fitting better, pressure being taken off my arthritic knee, and other benefits.
Looking at both the positive and the negative – and choosing a positive approach – is genuine positivity. Toxic positivity ignores, disregards, and discards the negative. That’s unrealistic, unhealthy, and of course toxic.
Doing the uncomfortable thing via conscious awareness is a positive approach that can help you actively grow, change, and evolve. Growth comes only from leaving our comfort zones. Since I would rather take the wheel and drive my life than just go for a ride, this is how I empower myself, and is worthwhile to me.
That’s why doing the uncomfortable thing is positive. How empowering is that?
Recognizing the positive in doing the uncomfortable thing isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you can only grow and change by leaving your comfort zone, you can mindfully act to work with the uncomfortable and start whatever it is you desire. Knowing that getting uncomfortable is necessary to grow, evolve, and experience more, you can practice mindfulness to make choices and decisions to take control over your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual being to grow, experience, and change your life.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and twenty-third (523) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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