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We spend most of our days doing similar routines—waking at the same time, eating the same breakfast, doing similar tasks at work, communicating with the same people, wearing the same outfits, watching the same TV shows. And on it goes.
When we make our routines and habits effortless, it can help us to feel healthier, less stressed, and even allow us to live longer. Habits are key to maintaining physical and mental health.
But when we become such creatures of habit, we run the risk of getting stuck in a boring rut, deprived of enjoying new or different experiences. This can even result in feelings of depression, laziness, or complacency.
An idea I try to instill in my children is that they have the ability to do hard things. This teaches them to embrace challenges with optimism, strive to keep growing, and use that growth to fuel their motivation to continue learning.
Like many lessons I teach them, I can apply this principle of growth to my own life. I’ve learned that comfort may sometimes lead to contentment—but it doesn’t lead to growth. Doing hard things is never the easy path, but it does deliver the greatest gains.
Comfort Is Our Greatest Nemesis
Feeling comfortable is a universal human desire. This relaxed, sometimes euphoric state of being draws us in and provides us with a settled mind. Life feels good when we’re comfortable.
But this “good” feeling can become empty and unsatisfying—especially when it keeps us from working on our higher aspirations. Comfort may be our greatest nemesis when it comes to making progress on meaningful but difficult tasks and goals.
It’s not surprising that trying to escape our comfort zone doesn’t come easily. When something unknown, challenging, or new presents itself, we are all but hardwired to retreat. Especially in a culture that upholds convenience and comfort above all else, we are instinctively drawn towards the safety of satisfying comforts.
And that’s exactly why many struggle to step beyond what’s familiar and easy. Here are four reasons we retreat to comfort:
Our fear of failure is strong.
It seems like the safest route.
Saying “no” to something new seems easier than saying “yes.”
We compare ourselves to others and think we could never live up to that standard.
But let’s not let these common tendencies hinder us from taking steps towards growth and goals.
Just think, what would have happened if Henry Ford wouldn’t have kept trying to perfect the model T automobile and invent the well-known assembly line production process that pioneered the automotive business. Did you know he filed for bankruptcy twice and had two motor car companies before founding Ford Motor Company in 1903?
Or what if Walt Disney had given up the dream of creating Disneyland after being told from a newspaper editor that he lacked imagination and had no good ideas?
And imagine if Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, had given up writing best-selling children’s books after being rejected by 27 publishers?
Doing Hard Things Produces Growth
You’ll never know until you try, is the type of mindset that I try to model for my children. Sure, we could stay in our comfortable safety net, but if it’s growth, adventure, or novelty we seek, pushing past the pleasures that comfort brings is essential.
Doing hard things requires grit, perseverance, and courage. None of those traits come from living an easy life and all of them are necessary for growth.
In the past several years as I’ve worked to create both a photography business and then a lifestyle blog, I’ve found the benefits of perseverance far exceed those of simple comfort.
I remember feeling inadequate to reach levels of success that I’d seen others in those industries have. It took months and years as progress and creativity ebbed and flowed for me to realize something…
Doing hard things is uncomfortable. But discomfort is the only way for meaningful change to happen.
And since then, I’ve not only been less afraid to do hard things, but consciously seek them out as a means of pursuing a growth mindset.
4 Benefits of Growing Through the Hard Thing
It opens creative possibilities. According to an article in the journal Cerebrum, when we engage our creative side, it engages our brain’s hippocampus, the area where dopamine is released and our brain’s pleasure center lights up. Creative pursuits require a learning curve, and that can be uncomfortable. The best musicians, artists, and writers have gone through the process of making mistakes, learning from them, and working to improve.
It teaches us a long-term growth mindset. Failure is an inevitable experience for anyone who tries new things or takes the kind of essential risks necessary to enjoy the opportunities this life can offer. When we choose to continue towards our goals instead of staying put, we learn how to use challenges and failures for growth, and we become more immune to resignation.
It shows us that a growth mindset lets us push past our weaknesses and use challenges to our advantage. When we believe we can do hard things, we have the key ingredient needed to put our brain’s plasticity to use. New experiences help the brain’s neurons form new connections. That means that our efforts will make our brain better able to handle whatever we throw at it. Experiencing this growth will inevitably help us build resilience and make us much more successful in accomplishing challenging tasks.
It helps us gain knowledge of ourselves. Just as spending time with a friend allows us to know them more deeply, the same is true about ourselves when we do hard things. We can better understand our strengths and weaknesses and learn how to continue pursuing a growth mindset by pushing past our fears while also guiding ourselves towards areas of interest.
It reveals the value of criticism. Doing hard things often comes with criticism from others. When criticism arrives we have the choice of seeing the feedback as judgment, or using it to learn. In the first case, we take it personally and see it as an attack on our abilities. This can shut the door to growth. In the second case, we use the feedback as a way to grow, change our approach, or expand our curiosity about what we can learn.
I’ve learned that growth can’t happen when I don’t listen to advice or feedback from others. Accepting my own weaknesses as a way to grow has given me more confidence as I take on new opportunities to do hard things.
Doing hard things isn’t comfortable, but if it’s comfort you seek you’re limiting your ability to learn and grow and giving up on the opportunity to become a better version of yourself. Be vigilant to look for ways that you can step outside your comfort zone and see how hard things can become steps of pruning and opportunities grow.
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