Why Comfort Will Ruin Your Life

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I was on a roll in my career. As an executive, I had a comfortable salary, annual bonuses, stock options, and all the perks one could hope for. Everything seemed to be on track until Monday, January 7th, 2008, at three o'clock in the afternoon. I was called to a quick meeting with the company president in a small conference room on the top floor of our building. This wasn't unusual, as he was my boss, but the meeting was unexpectedly brief. He fired me. His words took the breath out of me, and I left the room in a daze. I went home and curled up in bed for three hours, feeling a flood of emotions. While it deeply affected my self-esteem and finances, I later realized that this event, which created the greatest discomfort I had ever felt, was a turning point that forever changed my life for the better.

The lesson is simple: what makes you comfortable can ruin you, and what makes you uncomfortable is the only way to grow. At the time, if someone had told me that getting fired was a good thing because it would help me grow, I might have smacked them. But soon enough, I felt motivated to start a new journey. After a few years of hard work with my new team and a PhD friend at the University of Nebraska, we had an epiphany on how to illustrate and apply the science of discomfort and growth. We called this concept the "Growth Rings."

The Growth Rings represent environments that either promote or hinder growth, from your workplace to even something as simple as a fishbowl. For example, the size of a goldfish is dictated by its environment. While a goldfish in a small bowl is safe, it is also limited. In a larger, more robust environment, like a small pond, the goldfish can grow much larger, though it also faces new risks. Similarly, the environments where we live, work, and play are like fishbowls that dictate our growth.

The first Growth Ring is stagnation, a low-performing, low-growth environment characterized by too many rules, steps, and permissions. This environment stifles creativity, independent thought, and action. Think of it like the bureaucratic processes found in many government institutions. On the opposite end of stagnation is chaos, which is also low-growth and low-performing. Chaos can result from internal or external events, such as business mergers or natural disasters, and involves zero predictability or control over inputs and outcomes.

The most desirable environment is order, where actions lead to predictable outcomes, providing comfort. However, comfort is also what makes order dangerous. Science shows that when we repeatedly do something or think in the same way, we eventually stop growing. This applies to everything, even our pets. For example, if our dog, Aspen, had her way, she’d choose comfort every day, but too much comfort would have prevented her from becoming a therapy dog and touching countless lives.

Growth only occurs in a state of discomfort. This became clear to me when I was fired nine years ago, an uncomfortable, order-disrupting event. I’m not suggesting you go out and get fired, but when discomfort hits, you’ve entered what I call the complexity ring. Complexity is simply changed order. When your familiar order changes, outcomes become unpredictable, and this unpredictability causes discomfort. While our instinctive response to discomfort might be resistance, learning to acknowledge and embrace discomfort is crucial for growth. It’s the only environment where sustained or exponential growth can occur.

To incorporate high-growth complexity into your life, there are three ways to trigger it. The first is when complexity is forced upon you. When I got fired, I didn’t have a choice; complexity was chosen for me, and how much I grew depended on my response. I could have remained angry or used it as an excuse, but instead, I learned that I wasn’t suited for traditional employment and was better off running my own company.

The second way to trigger complexity is when someone helps you get there. This is the role of parents, teachers, coaches, and bosses. Left alone, people will often choose comfort over growth. My daughter’s tennis coach pushed her deep into complexity, making her cry on the court. Initially, I would have tried to comfort her, but I realized that doing so would stifle her growth. Instead, I appreciated her discomfort, understanding it was essential for her development.

The third way is to trigger complexity yourself. Consider the story of Claudette Colvin, a young Black girl in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s. On March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her bus seat for a white person, defying the local order and pushing the community, the laws, and the entire country into complexity. Her actions, taken nine months before Rosa Parks' famous stance, were a profound example of moving from order to complexity, forcing significant social change.

Dr. Serene Jones eloquently captures this concept: "The constant facade of order hides the wilderness that is craving to seep out and teach us that life wasn't created to be what we think it is." It's not the discomfort of losing a job or facing challenges that you should fear most; it's order because it limits growth. Order-disrupting people like Jesus, Galileo, Claudette Colvin, and many others have shown that it's not the events that disrupt order we should fear but our own willingness to embrace discomfort. This willingness will dictate not just our personal growth but the growth of our entire world.