Embracing Discomfort Can Aid Your Personal Growth

According to a recent study, you frequently need to step outside of your comfort zone to acquire new abilities or advance personally.?

If your goal is to improve your public speaking, you will need to practise speaking in front of others, which at first may feel anxious and uneasy. Because you often feel uncomfortable long before you see any improvement in your speaking, this can obstruct your ability to grow personally. Due to this, you may decide that the unpleasant emotional experience is not worthwhile and give up on your objective.?

Instead of avoiding discomfort, what if we changed the way we think about it and saw it as a sign of growth? According to a recent article by??Kaitlin Woolley from Cornell University and Ayelet Fishbach from the University of Chicago published in?Psychological Science,?this method of thinking can inspire people to work more successfully toward their objectives.?

The researchers say “Achieving personal growth often requires experiencing discomfort. What if instead of tolerating discomfort (e.g., feeling awkward or uncomfortable), people actively sought it out? Because discomfort is usually experienced immediately and is easy to detect, we suggest that seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation.”

In the first study, 557 adults participating in improvisation courses for beginners were chosen by researchers Woolley and??Fishbach. "Give Focus" was an improv exercise that the participants completed. While the other members of the group are locked in place, one member of the group is free to move around the room as they choose. At some time, the free-moving improviser decides to pass the "focus" to another member of the group, who then takes over.?

Half of the participants were informed that the exercise's purpose was for them to "feel awkward and uncomfortable," and that these sensations were evidence that the exercise was effective. Simple instructions for the activity were given to the control individuals without any mention of any discomfort. The improvisations were video recorded and afterwards scored on risk-taking and persistence (how long individuals held the spotlight before handing it to another member of the group) (how much they pushed the boundaries or went out a limb during their improvisation).?

Participants who were instructed to pursue emotions of embarrassment spent more time improvising and showed greater risk-taking, which the researchers surmise indicates that they were more driven to complete the task. Additionally, these participants were more inclined to think that the exercise had helped them reach their own goals.?

Additional online studies provided evidence that people can be motivated by discomfort in a variety of other circumstances. In one study, participants engaged in a writing activity that was intended to assist them to deal with a significant emotional problem. Some were informed that the exercise's purpose was to make them feel uncomfortable and unpleasant and that these emotions were evidence that the assignment was successful. In comparison to the control group, these individuals were more likely to feel that the exercise had improved their emotional development and coping abilities after completing it, and they were more eager to do it again in the future.?

While reading about Covid-19, gun violence, or the opinions of an opposition political party, participants in other research were similarly urged to feel unhappy or uneasy. Compared to control individuals who did not seek out discomfort, these participants were more eager to learn about these issues.?

Overall, the researchers found that we should seek out the difficult or uncomfortable experiences that are frequently connected to personal development and interpret them as indicators of progress toward our objectives. When we encounter what we might normally only see as unpleasant emotional experiences, this can motivate and inspire us.?

Some researchers have asked if it would be intriguing to learn if accepting discomfort also has long-term impacts on a person’s motivation and drive, going beyond a single instance.?

This study certainly puts a spotlight on traditional conventional thinking which has focused on removing a person’s discomfort to achieve successful motivation and results.