@authentickatie made a brilliant comment on my post the other day. She said, “I think a measure of how much you are growing is how often you are uncomfortable.” This reminded me of yet another mantra, one I said to myself constantly a few years back: “In discomfort, there is growth.” I’m a big believer in the importance of the words we use to talk to ourselves. At the time, I was going through a lot of change, with the aim to move my life more in line with my values. The process was uncomfortable and, frankly, kind of sucked. This discomfort fed my doubts. It is only natural to see discomfort as a warning. But change IS uncomfortable. Reinterpreting my discomfort as a sign marking that I was on the path of change — that I was doing something hard and meaningful, not that I was doing something wrong — really shifted things in my mind. Discomfort became a signal of confirmation, rather than of caution.
