Learning to Be Comfortable With the Uncomfortable
To become super learners who are always acquiring new knowledge and skills, we’ll permanently be in this state of “uncomfortableness”. The only way to deal with this feeling is by learning to adapt and become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Hey readers 👋
During the week, I was thinking about how we need to learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. This is a vital skill in the world we find ourselves today. Let me explain.
I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’re being pushed beyond our limits. This could be being asked to speak in front of a large audience, confronting a problematic individual, or calling out the elephant in the room. We’re forced to push ourselves, learn something new, or develop a skill.
Doing something we haven’t done before is difficult. It feels uncomfortable because learning and self-development is hard. If it was easy, our minds wouldn’t resist this process.
This feeling of “uncomfortableness” is a sign that we’re pushing boundaries. We’re learning, developing, and growing as an individual.
Learning something new, taking risks, or throwing ourselves out there is never going to be comfortable. But this is good because, if we were comfortable, there would be no incentive to learn and develop.
The more we want to learn, develop, and expand our boundaries, the more uncomfortable we’ll feel.
To become super learners who are always acquiring new knowledge and skills, we’ll permanently be in this state of “uncomfortableness”. The only way to deal with this feeling is by learning to adapt and become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
The more comfortable we are being uncomfortable, the less resistance to learning we’ll have. The more we’ll learn and the better accomplished we’ll be, giving us the greatest chance of success. This is key to the growth mindset.
Like all skills, becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable can be learned. It’s best learned by exposing ourselves to uncomfortable situations and pushing ourselves. Experience is the best teacher after all. The more we find ourselves in these situations, the more we’ll learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.
The same feeling others get in their comfort zone, you’ll get while pushing your boundaries. Uncomfortable situations will become second nature.
Push yourselves out of your comfort zone.
Have an awesome week ahead 🤩
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Featured Article
Samuel Ajayi-Obe
3 Things I've Enjoyed This Week
- Things Emotionally Intelligent People Don’t Do - An article written by a psychologist explaining that emotional intelligence often about what you do less of.
- 6 Habits of Super Learners - The world is changing rapidly, so we need to be able to learn, unlearn, and relearn at the pace of change in the world. This article shares some habits to help make this process easier.
- Hamming, "You and Your Research" - Hamming was a maths and engineering professor. In this talk he gave to his class, he teaches them the broad principles of success. A very enlightening talk that everyone should be made to listen to at school.
Tweet of the Week
Effective people do things ineffective people don’t like to do.
— Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish) November 23, 2019
A large part of the separation between effective and not is the willingness to do obvious things nobody wants to do.
This Week's Wisdom
"Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action."
- James Clear, in the book Atomic Habits
I use readwise to resurface content I've previously highlighted. My followers can get an extra month free by following this link.
Every Sunday, I write a lesson I wished I had learned 10 years earlier, to feed our brains with intelligent content to start our week.
I also share interesting articles, books quotes, and the occasional speech or TED talk to help us all get smarter, wiser and live better.
I follow my curiosity at SamuelObe.com
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