Comfort Will Destroy Your Life

How to avoid that

We usually avoid difficulty whenever we can. We stay most of the time in this circle called our comfort zone. Everyone has one, and we like being in it. Usually, it looks like something we routinely do, like spending weekends hanging out with the same people we’ve always socialized with, holding on to the same beliefs we had for years, and failing to consider different opinions. Basically, it means taking the path of least resistance.

When life becomes a predictable routine with no real challenges, we find ourselves stagnating. The majority of people stay in their comfort zone for most of their lives. As the name implies, it’s comfortable here, since we’re not pushing ourselves. At first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with that. Why would we voluntarily put ourselves in a position of struggle if we don’t have to? While our comfort zone is indeed comfortable, it has one big downside. People stuck here for too long don’t just stagnate, but they often regress backward. When you’re doing the same things the same way over and over, the comfort zone itself begins to shrink, the things that you were comfortable with before are now less comfortable. When a muscle isn’t used for a longer period of time, it atrophies and gets smaller because there is no reason for it to stay big. The same happens when we don’t challenge ourselves. We become less capable of handling the obstacles that life throws at us. When we do something that is a little more difficult or challenging for us, we leave the comfort zone and enter the growth zone. This is where we struggle and we might feel like incompetent, fools, but this is exactly where all real progress is made. You have probably noticed this yourself, when working out at the gym you don’t improve if you simply lift the same weight every time; when learning a new language, you’re not advancing if you only practice what you already know. It will be uncomfortable? Yes. You will struggle? Yes. You will probably feel like an idiot, but doing anything worthwhile requires you to go through this because the things that have the biggest payoff always feel difficult. There’s no improvement without challenge.

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