Greatness can be daunting. How can any of us live up to such a standard? The answer is simple, but as the word underscores, greatness takes great sacrifice and discipline! To do great things, we need to conquer great challenges and overcome adversity. This starts with doing things out of your comfort zone. Doing uncomfortable things is what helps us grow and allows us to achieve the level of greatness. That standard in of itself is stressful and daunting, but it starts with doing one uncomfortable thing a day. One thing a day that pushes your comfort zone will evolve you as a person. It will push you to and then beyond your limits. It doesn’t have to be complicated. As a matter of fact, it’s actually rather simple. When that one thing starts to get comfortable, we can measure our growth from our starting point to where we are now. Comfort creeping its way back in signifies progress which means it’s time to up the ante and get uncomfortable again. This is the never ending process of greatness!
It doesn’t have to be complicated
Doing one thing a day that makes you uncomfortable doesn’t have to be convoluted. In fact, it’s usually very simple. If you’re trying to enhance your physical well-being, your one uncomfortable thing per day might be to run a mile. When that gets easy, up the ante and build up your ladder of progress! Before you know it you’ll be running marathons! I’ve experienced this progression firsthand and if you decide to as well you’ll undoubtedly see the same or similar results. I’ve now moved on from marathon running to ultra marathon running, a space I would’ve scoffed at even attempting just a year ago. One uncomfortable thing a day adds up rather quickly and the results are exponential!
In the career and financial sector, this concept is essentially the same just with different action items. If you’re in sales, the driver of your business and financial well-being is to have as many conversations as possible with prospective clients. The more people you talk to, the better you get, and the more money you make. It’s a rather simple formula, but it isn’t easy. As a matter of fact, sales calls, especially cold sales calls, are one of the most difficult things you can do in the industry, especially as a beginner. Fear of rejection is extremely uncomfortable. If you can put yourself in a position to conquer this discomfort with one string of concentrated effort a day, you will succeed. Make 5 sales calls per day until that becomes comfortable enough for you to bear. Then, up the ante to 10,15,20,100 until you literally can’t squeeze anymore calls into your day. At this point, you will be making sales and building your business. The point here is that one uncomfortable action makes all the difference in the world and separates average from greatness!
You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse
A lot of people cling to the false belief that once they reach a certain level of success and achievement that they have nothing left to learn or grow from. This is far from the truth. Life is about continuous learning and improvement. It only ends when you die or you’re too sick to learn anymore. If you’re not gaining you’re losing and losing can sneak up on you fast if you let it. Complacency is the enemy of greatness.
In America, most people are planning on traveling down the path of least resistance at a W-2 until they can retire in their 60s after working 40+ years so they can live off their retirement income and “enjoy” the last 10-20 years of their life. If you subscribe to this mindset, it’s likely that when you hit that age you’ll come to the brutal realization there probably isn’t much to enjoy to a large extent if your plan is to sit on the couch and do nothing for the remainder of your life. On average, Americans who retire from their jobs live 9 years post retirement before death regardless of what age they were when they retired. If this doesn’t demonstrate the premise of you’re either getting better or worse I don’t know what does! People who reach a certain milestone in their lives and then think they have nothing left to offer society with their lives are dead wrong. These thoughts can be pretty depressing. I know of several people who actually went back to some sort of work after retirement because they were looking for some purpose in their lives again.
The point is if you’re doing uncomfortable things, you’re growing. Growth is fulfilling and makes life worth living. The more we grow the more value we have for society which in turn fills us with purpose, something many people feel as though they lack in today’s world of corporate droning and brainless W-2s. There is no easy button or shortcut for life. Reality is going to hit you hard one way or another. Either you continue to progress and achieve fulfillment in spurts along the way as you seek discomfort constantly, or you pass through life passively and purposelessly into an existence you’re sure to regret. Phrased like this, your choice should be obvious! Seek out one uncomfortable thing per day and build a lifelong streak of accomplishments and feats you can be proud of!