Discomfort

There are so many ways to ruin a life.

Drugs. Alcohol. Bad decisions.

But there’s one other way that we should never forget.

Comfort.

Your life expands or contracts according to what you are willing to do when things become difficult.

Think about that.

Every time you choose comfort over something that matters, you draw a boundary around your life.

You decide that a particular difficulty is too much.

And slowly, those boundaries become the limits of what you believe you can do.

You stop attempting difficult things.

You expect less of yourself.

And eventually, you become comfortable living a smaller life.

But the opposite is also true.

Every time you go beyond what is comfortable, you discover something.

You can do more than you thought.

You can solve problems you once avoided.

You can endure difficulties that once seemed too hard.

And something that was once beyond your limits becomes part of what you can do.

Consider what happens over an entire lifetime.

One person repeatedly stops when things become uncomfortable.

Another repeatedly finds a way to continue.

At first, their lives may look almost identical.

But every decision changes what becomes possible next.

One becomes accustomed to limitations.

The other becomes accustomed to overcoming them.

Years pass.

The difference compounds.

And eventually, they are living entirely different lives.

That is why these small, difficult decisions matter so much.

You are not merely deciding whether to make one more effort.

You are deciding what sort of person you are becoming.

And what sort of life that person will be capable of living.

One day, you’ll look back and see that your greatest opportunities were not always found where things were easy.

They were found beyond difficulties you once thought were too much.

Never build your life around avoiding discomfort.

Build a life around doing what matters, even when it is difficult.