by Breanna Adamick

At some point in each of our lives, we have likely felt the experience of living within a comfortable bubble, so to speak. We do so much to make sure we can feel as comfortable and safe as possible, in more ways than one. While comfort and safety are important aspects of a satisfactory life, they can also be somewhat limiting as you move through life. Shying away from uncomfortable experiences, conversations and opportunities can deprive you of a meaningful chance to grow in who you are as a person.

Many of us have probably heard some people say, in quite a contradictory statement, that we need to learn how to become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. It can be difficult to know just how to do that, but I believe that it can start with challenging yourself to do, say or feel something important that you might not ordinarily allow yourself to. One of the first steps to changing your comfort levels can be to recognize what things cause you to be uncomfortable, as the realization of those things can be the start of working to change the negative feelings you experience from them.

In addition, it is okay to start small with new experiences and challenging yourself. Gradual changes and little risks are a perfect place to begin and can give you a boost of confidence when you succeed. Remember, also, that you are not alone—other people are out of their comfort zones too. It is never just you.

Getting out of your comfort zone can mean you are facing the possibility of failure and taking risks. Fear of failure can be a common feeling that holds you back from striving more boldly for achievements, but as many have likely said before me, how can you truly enjoy and comprehend the feeling of success if you have never done anything that has failed? The gratification of accomplishing tasks, new skills and challenges would not be near what it is without the ever-present possibility and memory of past failures.

If you attempt to avoid ever being uncomfortable or dealing with stressors—a term known as avoidance coping—you may prevent yourself from valuable growth. Does anyone really want to deprive themselves of that? All of us, essentially, are here to grow—not just here in school, but in life. If you think about it, all we do in life is for the purpose of growth of some kind—physically, mentally and emotionally. We seek growth in our knowledge, career, social life, family life and within ourselves over time. We look hard to find out who we really are, and that person comes from life experiences: friendships lost and found, forging deeper family connections, setting and achieving goals, pushing yourself to make hard but important choices and challenging yourself to start something new.

A very real and wonderful possibility of challenging yourself and your comfort level is that you may end up, quite unexpectedly, discovering a new passion or strength. I can attest that putting yourself out there and moving past your comfort level can be an incredibly rewarding experience, as I likely would not be writing this if I had not done so. In the second semester of my freshman year here at Greensboro College, I made the decision to join a campus club—this club, The Collegian—and I have found myself entirely thankful for that decision ever since. Not only has it strengthened valuable skills such as my writing and public speaking skills, but it has provided me with a newfound passion. In addition, and something that has been one of the most special things about the whole experience, it has led me to some of the best friendships that I have made here at GC. Ultimately, electing to join a new club has benefited me in many ways since I took that first, somewhat uncomfortable, step. Without inviting discomfort, such revelations about yourself may never occur.

Avoidance coping, as briefly mentioned previously, is not usually a healthy, long-term solution for dealing with stress and discomfort. When you attempt to go through life avoiding the situations, feelings or ideas that cause you stress, it does not resolve those issues, but merely pushes them aside for the moment, likely leading to further exacerbation of the issue over time. In the meantime, those problems or worries may increase, leaving a harder situation to handle when eventually you must face it.

Take the simple example of homework—procrastination is no stranger to the average college student, especially when it pertains to a particularly complex assignment. By procrastinating the work you must do on that assignment, you may feel less stressed in the moment, but when the deadline becomes significantly closer and you realize you cannot put the homework off any longer, your stress is bound to increase. Now you only have a few days to complete it, where you used to have two weeks. The stakes are higher due to the limited amount of time, and therefore your stress is likely to increase exponentially.  In short, avoidance coping is not the answer to dealing with stress, but actually allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable as you navigate tricky situations can lead to a much healthier stress response overall.

Through all this talk of challenging yourself in uncomfortable situations, however, it should be clear that all of this comes with moderation and knowing your own limitations. We do not all have the same threshold for discomfort and vulnerability, and I do not mean to suggest as much. A challenge for one person could be speaking in front of a large audience, while for another it could be going to the grocery store alone, and neither of those is lesser than the other. There is also nothing that suggests that you must have new experiences or challenge yourself alone—sometimes the familiar face of a friend is all you need to be brave enough to step outside your comfort zone and take a few healthy risks. There is never anything wrong with finding a greater level of independence, or else seeking out the presence of a friend when you need them.

Being comfortable with who you are is an important aspect of life that I believe, eventually, most of us end up achieving. The discovery of who that person is, what their limits are and how best to navigate life, however, can often come through uncomfortable experiences and realizations. One does not always have to seek out such experiences, but learning not to actively avoid them is important for considerable personal growth. It will always be something of a journey, but let us work to become okay with sometimes feeling uncomfortable.