How to create more comfort

When thinking about creating more comfort, I’ve thought a lot about human motivation. This is a topic that I’ve spent years studying. People are fascinating to me! Why we do the things we do? Why we don’t do the things we don’t do, and how to make permanent changes to meet our desires.

One of the strongest motivators that we have, as humans, is to seek comforts and pleasures. This is a biological truth oh how our brains are designed. I’m sure you’ve noticed this in your daily life, I certainly do in mine. As I’ve been thinking about this concept, I realized that there’s something I know to do. I make sure to do it on a regular basis. I want to share it with you. That’s how to create more comfort in your life. 

Now, this may be different coaching than you’re expecting because I’m not going to tell you to go buy a new truck or take that vacation you’re considering. Those types of things are nice and I want every nice thing for you that you want for yourself.

Creating Comfort is always available to you!

What I’m talking about this creating comfort, is available to you no matter where you are, no matter who you’re around, no matter what you have or don’t have.

What I want to coach you on today is to expand your ability to create comfort by being willing to first be uncomfortable on purpose. That may sound strange or counter-intuitive to you, but let me continue and I think you’ll understand what I mean.  

Have you ever had a nerve racking experience? Maybe you had to give a presentation in front of a big group, maybe you were introducing yourself to your future spouse for the first time, or maybe you had to deal with an especially irate patient.  Something where you were nervous going into it, and your heart was pounding, your hands were clammy? 

Once you got through the experience, you realized that whatever level of comfort or discomfort you’d peg it at, it wasn’t quite as bad as you’d anticipated it being. Maybe it wasn’t bad at all, or maybe you were even pumped for the next presentation!

Two things happen when we’re uncomfortable.

By putting ourselves in new and unfamiliar (which are often uncomfortable) situations, two things often happen:

1. The first is that our brains freak out. Remember, our brains are hard-wired for comfort. So when you stand up to give that presentation your mind is going to offer you all kinds of thoughts about what could go wrong, what you might have forgotten, who is your strongest critic at the table.  It’s going to tell you that it’s better and safer to stay in your comfort zone by not giving the presentation. When you create comfort for yourself, your brain alarm goes off. So the brain fit is the first thing that happens.  But then this amazing thing happens when you follow through with your plan.  And that leads us to the second thing.   

2. You stand up to your brain.  You don’t give in to its demand for you to back out or give up. And the reason that is so important is that too often we short ourselves of enriching experiences because our brains tell us things that we don’t have to believe. Now the brain is just doing its job. It registers new as dangerous. It’s trying to warn you when you’re considering something it doesn’t have past experience to verify the safety of.  But you know that you don’t have to have already done something for it to be good, useful, or safe. You know that you can do new things. You can do uncomfortable things, You can do really hard things!!

If you want to increase your ability to feel comfortable more often in more situations, develop a higher level of comfort in a zone you’re not already relaxed in.  You have to expand the range of situations you can be in while still feeling a level of ease and enjoyment.  To do that you have to willing to put yourself in new and currently uncomfortable situations. 

Reluctant Cousin

I have a friend who owns multiple practices in the midwest. He wanted to hire his cousin to associate one of his locations, but his cousin was reluctant because both the patient demographic and the pace of the office he’d be working at were different than what he was used to. So my friend asked if I’d be willing to talk to him and as we spoke I learned that although he was a talented and motivated clinician, he had a history of turning down new opportunities in an effort to avoid being uncomfortable. Totally understandable, he has a human brain. 

The problem for him, and what I see in a lot of people, is that in trying to steer clear of newness and the discomforts that come with new things, a different kind of discomfort is given into. The discomfort of holding yourself back.  Of giving up before you try or giving in too soon.  Before you get to the other side where you realize it wasn’t so bad, or even bad at all. Before you gain the experience and the confidence that comes from having done something different. 

My friend’s cousin and I worked together for some time and uncovered why he was holding himself back.  He ended up taking the opportunity and loves it! There were some adjustments, but with those came opportunities for this doctor to augment his enjoyment of doing dentistry. 

Choosing to Create Comfort

What I want to offer to you is that you don’t have to stay in the shallow end of the pool to be safe and successful. You can swim anywhere you want to! You’ve just got to tell your brain that it’s okay to be a little uncomfortable at first. 

I don’t know about you, but I’d choose initial discomfort with the ROI of a permanently inflated comfort zone all day long before I’d choose to plateau and be stuck at a level that isn’t living into my potential. 

So here’s your work. I recommend that you choose something. It can be small.  Take a cold shower, run an extra lap, skip the cookies, whatever.  But choose something that you’re going to change your mind about. Choose a way to create comfort for yourself. Something that you’ve decided is most comfortable and the way you do things and alter it. You can do it in stages, but I want you to experience the personal empowerment of realizing that many of the reluctant or dissuasive thoughts that your mind offers you serve no purpose other than to hold you back from experiencing your inner strength. 

There is power in increasing the number of ways you can be comfortable. There is COMFORT in increasing your range of comfort!! And it starts with a willingness to be, temporarily, uncomfortable. 

I’M READY TO BALANCE MY LIFE