This Is How I Got Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

“Success is awarded to those willing to do the uncomfortable” - Darren Hardy

We all enjoy being comfortable. Comfort provides safety, predictability, and consistency.  Comfort allows us to relax, unwind, and look to the future.

Staying in a zone of comfortability can also be a liability.

Actual growth will only occur when we step out of our comfort zones and take on new experiences and challenges.

It’s natural to avoid situations and experiences that lead to discomfort. Fear, intimidation or embarrassment can occur at these times.  But when we consider the growth that occurred in our lives, something that happened where we felt a defining moment or a sense of accomplishment, rarely do we remember it being comfortable along the way.

Rarely do large and impactful events happen while we remain in our comfort zones. Throughout my journey of growing hint, I have discovered that when I am put in uncomfortable situations, the magic really begins to happen. If I had never taken the risk of leaving a secure job and comfortable salary at AOL, entering the beverage industry which I knew practically nothing about, then hint would have never been created.

The first few years of starting my own company were super tough and very uncomfortable. But taking that risk, placing myself in uncomfortable situations every day, was extremely rewarding.  I have come to realize that learning to cope with discomfort is one of the most useful abilities an entrepreneur can have.

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube says, “Rarely are opportunities presented to you in the perfect way, in a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. … Opportunities, the good ones, they’re messy and confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you.”

Here are a few ways I have learned to mitigate the challenges of discomfort in the workplace.

Change Your Perception of Fear

Fear plays a large role in paralyzing us from stepping out of our comfort zone. Realize that fear is natural, and there’s no possibility of eliminating it. Instead, accept and even embrace fear. Be aware that with fear often comes an opportunity for growth, and rarely has any achievement occurred without overcoming fears. Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology once said, “It’s not our failures that determine our future success, but how we explain them to ourselves.” Fear isn’t a physical state more so than a state of mind. Many situations are uncomfortable because we think of them to be. Try and remind yourself of the discomfort you feel is a sign you're doing something right.

Embrace and Welcome Failures

Every single person will fail at some point. It’s inevitable, it’s ok and it’s also necessary. Failing can be a great way to steer us in a different, perhaps better direction. I reached a moment of panic when I got a call one day from our largest distributor, Starbucks saying they weren’t going to stock hint anymore because they wanted to create their own. I was at a loss. I had no idea what I was going to do with the millions of dollars of product waiting for Starbucks. A few days later, I received a call from Amazon. They were about to launch food and beverage on their site and one of their buyers had tried hint at a Starbucks. They loved it so much, they bought all the inventory we had set up for Starbucks. Failure has a funny way of pointing us in the right direction towards success.

Prepare to Hear No

This is true, especially for entrepreneurs. Not everyone is going to agree with you, but that doesn’t mean you need to surrender to the belief that it’s a bad idea. A few years ago, the Blockbuster CEO turned down Netflix’s partnership offer, passing up the chance to buy Netflix for only $50 million. Blockbuster is now out of business, and Netflix is now worth over $150 billion. My Space CEO refused to buy Facebook For $75 million. Now, MySpace is worth considerably less than Facebook. The point is that sometimes no just means there’s a better path for the future. Keep pushing and keep yourself motivated by keeping in mind the most successful people in the world have been faced with hearing no. It’s what you choose to do after that determines your success.

Surround Yourself with People Who Will Challenge You

It feels good to have people around you who support you and are like-minded. However, these people may not be best for your business and personal growth. Healthy conflict and debate are crucial for growth by offering different perspectives, ultimately expanding your company and career.

Margaret Heffernan, former CEO of 5 businesses suggests “that we find people who are very different from ourselves. That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive, which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves, and it means we have to seek out people with different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking and different experience and find ways to engage with them.” In an inspiring Ted talk, she explained how we should look at “conflict as thinking” and encourages people to speak up when you don’t agree. Raising debate and conflict in a business is a great way to refine and update areas of your business you may not have thought of alone.

We all have to be willing to deal with a certain amount of discomfort in order to see what we’re truly capable of. Relax, if you're feeling uncomfortable, you’re simply growing. The risks are high, but the reward can be even higher.

PS - I'm on Instagram now! Are you? If you have any questions, send me a DM on Instagram, and I'll make sure to reply there! I'm @KaraGoldin!

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of San Francisco–based hint, a healthy lifestyle brand that produces the leading unsweetened flavored water and a scented sunscreen spray that’s oxybenzone and paraben-free. Listen to her podcast, Unstoppable, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and disruptors across various industries and keep up with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

#Entrepreneur #Growth #Discomfort