Will Comfort Ruin Our Life?

It was soon after I completed my Masters in Management Studies my internship of the last semester had converted into a full time job by now. I was the marketing and franchise executive to a Fitness Center with a nice salary (some amount of my own), annual bonuses, gym membership with a personal trainer and all the other perks. Everything was on track and on Monday, December 12th, 2011 at six o’clock in the evening, in a small consultation room on the same floor, the Owner of the Fitness Center wanted to have a quick meeting with me and the sales manager which was pretty unusual since he always communicated with us stopping by the corridor. The meeting turned out to be even more brief than expected. He informed both of us that he has decided to lease the premises with business and asked us to discontinue from the very next day since the new management have hired their staff.

I’ll never forget how his words just sucked the breath right out of me. We left the conference room in a dazed state I went home straight into my bedroom and stared outside the window  for three hours before my dad knocked on the door calling out for dinner. While I could go on in vivid detail about how I felt, what it did to my self-esteem, my finances and so on. What I now realise is while that event created the greatest amount of discomfort I had ever felt, it was that discomfort, the departure from my ordered life that forever changed it for the better. The ordered life was to be stuck to one organisation with good salary and stable with scope of growth something like hat my father was already doing and so were my cousins of my age.

I believe, What Makes You Comfortable Can Ruin You & The Only Way To Grow Makes You Uncomfortable.

Now I suppose on January 11th had somebody come up and said “Hey, getting fired is a good thing because now you’re really going to grow!” I probably would have punched them on their face. But pretty quickly I became motivated to start a new journey. And after a couple years off work with various other organisation in different job roles and finally to my current stress and pain management business. My partner and I had this realisation on how to illustrate and apply the science of discomfort and growth. From the knowledge and the learnings from various modalities we practice we understood the the concept of "The Growth Rings".

The Growth Rings represent living environments that promote or obstruct growth including everything right from your place of work, to even the safest environment called home.Consider the fish bowl and the size of a gold fish in its environment, and while the goldfish lives in a very safe environment it is also very limiting in every way. When placed in a more sturdy environment, a small pond.  This can result the fish could be eaten. This is us  -  the environments in which you work, live and play all are a proven fish bowl that dictates our growth.

The First Growth Ring represents a low performing, low growth environment called Stagnation. Stagnation is understood by having to follow too many steps, permissions and details that choke creativity, independent thought and action. To imagine an environment such as this, think no further than our culture, family name & heritage driven family homes. Now the reverse of stagnation is chaos, also low growth and low performing, chaos can be caused by internal or external events or conditions. We see chaos occur at times in business mergers, natural disasters, and horrific events like 26/11. Chaos is having zero predictability or control over inputs and outcomes.

Now the Growth Rings next to Stagnation is the most desirable environment. Knowing what to do or what is happening in the environment leads to a predictable outcome, and in predictability comfort is found. But comfort, is also what makes it so dangerous, because observation shows that any time you continually do something or even think about something the same way, you will eventually stop growing where this applies to every living thing . So, before you continue to limit the way you think and act, remember Growth ONLY occurs in a state of discomfort.

Now think about the power of the statement can absolutely state I wouldn’t be writing blogs today without my uncomfortable and disrupting day nine years ago. When you feel the discomfort, that means you’ve entered  the second ring.

Complexity the second ring is nothing more than change, but when your changed outcomes are no longer predictable, and it is the unpredictability that makes you uncomfortable. While most times our gut response to discomfort is not just “no”, but “never ever would I”, you can actually learn how empowering it is to consciously acknowledge discomfort. I know seeking discomfort sounds odd, but we have to learn to embrace it, because it’s the only environment where sustained growth can occur. To weave high growth complexity into the fabric of our lives, there are three primary ways it can be triggered:

Complexity trigger 1  -  It can be forced on you

When I got terminated I didn’t have a chance to stay in that state. Complexity was selected for me, and when this happens how much you grow depends on how you respond to it. Now, I could have remained angry and used it as an excuse, but learnt I am bad as an employee, and I’m much better off accepting the risks of running my own organisation.

Complexity trigger 2  -  Someone can help you get there

This is the role of parents, teachers, coaches and bosses, because left on their own people will consciously or subconsciously select the comfort and they then need to be pushed into complexity in order to continue growing. This is where critical developmental decisions are made. Because, if the parents, teacher, coaches or bosses would have intervened and would have wanted to know what is making us so uncomfortable, then they would have done everything they could to try to get us happy again. What these roles mentioned earlier would have had was removing the complexity. Well, the best part is everyone can trigger complexity at any time.

Complexity trigger 3  -  Trigger it yourself

It is the complexity of forcing people, communities or other larger authorities into discomfort, and the subsequent impact that can occur any time someone elects to move from the set possibility. So, it’s not the discomfort of losing a job but it’s set possibility you should fear the most for it is a threat.

As we all know the Chairman to Tata Trust emeritus Ex-Chairman to Tata Group & Tata Sons, Ratan Tata has been possibility disrupter of our time. From manufacturing and launching automobiles in India to outright purchase of Jaguar & Land Rover. In his early days completing studies in United States of America he had no plans coming back to India and join Tata Steel. He had been hired and working at IBM Computers for fifteen days until one day when his great grand-father J.R.D. Tata called him and spoke to him on the importance of working in their family business. Leading Ratan Tata coming to India and start working on the shop floors of Tata Steel. Today, Ratan Tata is an Industrialist, Philanthropist, Investor and is the most influential Business magnate India has ever seen. Think what if he would have either stayed back in the United States continuing his job or stayed back home while others ran Tata Sons and Tata Group?

Sitting on a comfortable spot can cost us possibilities of growth and later on in life we are left with regrets and complain about not being offered or picking chances that came into our lives before. So get up, quit your comfort and break the stereo type of set possibilities choose growth over mimicking or following someone’s life. The stories of people we have either read, seen or heard have played their part in their time. The phase we stay in is our time to shine. We shine as bright as them in our era.