Seek the Uncomfortable

Joel Younkins

“The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Roy T. Bennett

​I'm only 29 years old, and I realize I do not have all of the answers. As I get older, I realize how many answers I'm truly missing. But, I have learned a couple things along the way in my journey so far. I feel it's my duty to share my perspective on these things with others. So I'm going to give you my current thoughts on this topic right now to maybe help spark you to some future success for yourself!

During my journey of training, coaching, and growing a business, I have found some consistent parallels that exist between all three of these. In this post, I want to discuss the idea of comfort zones. What I have learned to be true, is that growth happens almost 100% of the time, outside of your comfort zone. Now, I know that sounds like a cliche, right? But, this couldn't be more true. And I'm not talking about small growth, like "oh hey look, I can do 21 push ups now instead of 20." I'm talking about making real, big, and dramatic changes to your life. I've witnessed my clients, who come in consistently 3 times a week, and watch them push through the struggle, and make huge progress in just a few months! They literally tell me, "I never would've thought I could ever do that in my life" kind of things. It's an amazing thing to watch this happen to them!

For myself personally, not long ago, I would've never thought I'd ever be able to Squat over 600lbs. I started the sport of powerlifting, I kept trying to push my boundaries, and I eventually squatted 650lbs, leaving me with the feeling of wanting to Squat 700! Ask me that in college as an elite D1 collegiate athlete, and I would've probably said, "yeah I wish."

In times of business growth has been same. I remember back to year 1. Things were tight, my goal was simply pay my bills on time. That was not comfortable position to be in, but it forced me to be creative and work harder and smarter to make this business survive, and then eventually thrive! Whenever, I catch myself feeling content, I find myself to be less creative, less motivated to accomplish more. It's simply human nature in us to do that. What do I do when I want to consume more business growth? Simple, I just find a way to make myself more uncomfortable. One of the best pieces of advice I ever took a couple years, was to raise my standards for myself every 6 months. So I use January and July to reflect on what areas I want to grow on what I expect of myself.

I've also heard advice from millionaires, that they say if you want to become a millionaire, always spend your money on things that are just out of reach of what you can afford. Why? To simply never become comfortable in what you're making. This puts the pressure on to keep making more money. I'm no financial coach or adviser, so do with that information as you will, I'm just giving you another example of comfort zones. 

My point to this blog post wasn't to preach some new method or theory to achieve success. I'd have to believe that you have heard something along the lines of this before. I assume that if you're reading my blog posts, you're the type of person who looks for growth and to evolve themselves. So I'm sure this is nothing new to you. But, I wanted to remind you of this simple reality that leads to growth. It's one of the simplest things you can do for yourself to achieve really any goal. I'm reminding you, if you want to do something, force yourself somehow someway to get a little uncomfortable in the process and that will make it easier to achieve that goal. I'm not saying miserable, but a little discomfort in your life does some good time to time. And those times that I'm referring to, are times of growth!

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