As of this writing, I am 35 years old. That’s 35 years of life. 35 years of experience. In these 35 years of existence, I have learnt something very interesting about the human body and by executing on this knowledge, great things can happen.

What is this very interesting thing you ask? Mild discomfort, in almost any form, will make you stronger.

That sounds simple, but is it? How often are we going out to seek discomfort? When discomfort presents itself, the usual reaction is to try to get out of it as much as possible. Get back to comfort and wellbeing. I’m here, writing these words to tell you, after 35 years of life, if you embrace mild discomfort, the world will change before you.

If you don’t believe me, let me lay out some mild discomforts that are proven to make you stronger, either mentally, physically or both.

• Sauna – heat discomfort
• Cold plunge – cold discomfort
• Fasting – hunger discomfort
• Exercising – physical discomfort
• Studying – mental discomfort
• Meditating – mental discomfort
• Delayed gratification – mental discomfort

What’s amazing to me is as a society, we are trying so hard to live comfortable lives. In trying to live comfortably, we avoid discomfort. We are trying to find the easy way through everything. The easy way to be healthy, the easy way to make money, the easy way to get or hold onto a relationship and so on and so on. I’m here to tell you, the true way to success and the comfort you seek is through discomfort.

During discomfort, our entire being figures out a way to cope with the mild discomfort. It gets stronger. Able to handle even more stress, even more discomfort. It’s in this adaptation to discomfort that we actually get to live comfortably. What a plot twist!

You want to lose weight, so you go on a diet. You’ve put yourself in an uncomfortable situation and your body is beginning to adapt. It starts realizing not as much food is coming in like there was before and so, it starts figuring out how to make do of the situation. It starts hitting those fat reserves for energy. If you continually put yourself in this uncomfortable situation, your body will continue to adapt. Eventually, it won’t be uncomfortable anymore. Your body will have figured it out. Now it’s normal. All it took was persistent discomfort compounded over time.

I’ll give you an example from my life. I have always wanted to learn how to do criss-cross double unders while jump roping. I would say I’m pretty proficient with the jump rope, but for the life of me, I could not get this done. Want to know why? Every time I tried, it felt uncomfortable trying to learn this new thing and I would stop trying. This was also amplified when the rope would thrash into me when I made an error while practicing this trick. So, there I was, on and off. One part of me wanting to learn the trick, the other part of me wanting to stay comfortable and not put myself in discomfort to learn the trick. That is until one day I told myself, “Embrace the discomfort.”

That phrase, “Embrace the discomfort,” will change your life. When you are setting out on an endeavor and your embrace the discomfort… oh man, things start happening (I’m talking mild discomfort here, don’t go trying to light yourself on fire and embrace that discomfort or anything… keep it mild). All of a sudden you keep pushing through. You know that through this discomfort, your body, your mind, your entire being will adapt. It will learn, it will grow, it will get stronger, it will adapt! So, you embrace it. Eventually, you begin to relish it. You start seeking it out. You start seeking out discomfort, so that you can grow and evolve into a new level of comfort.

So, after 35 years, I have started seeking out discomfort. Here is what I have found so far:

• I run a half marathon every month (I’ve run 33 consecutive half marathons as of this writing). They suck. They’re uncomfortable. I have to dig deep. I love em!
• I eat one meal a day Monday – Friday. I used to get really hungry. Now I don’t. I feel amazing!
• I learnt how to do criss-cross double unders. I used to run away from the rope whipping my legs. Now I can do 20 in a row and transition into regular double unders.
• I read a book a month. I used to hate reading. Now, I get lost in the narratives. I take notes, I learn, it’s fun.
• I communicate with my wife. When something was wrong, I would hold it in because it would cause a contentious moment. Now I tell her exactly how I feel, when I feel it and we deal with it right there and then. My relationship is stronger than it has ever been
• I meditate multiple times a day. I used to hate not being able to focus my mind. Now it takes me about 1 min to slow my thoughts down and get into a quiet space that has a ton of benefits. I’ll write another blog post on this another time.

Mostly though, when things get tough and don’t go my way, I have learnt to embrace that discomfort and push through, because I know I will get stronger. By embracing discomfort in all these other avenues of life and seeing the benefits, I know that if I embrace discomfort in anything that life presents to me, I will get stronger in that area. When I get stronger, I will be able to adapt better. Once i’m able to adapt better, those same situations won’t make me uncomfortable and through discomfort, I have gained comfort.

Until next time!