Why Seeking Comfort Causes Discomfort

Jake Luehrs
November 08, 2025

ONE QUESTION

Is your tight grip trying to control everything and everyone making you stronger or just making you tired?

ONE THING TO PONDER

We prefer things to stay the same, and yet that very thing dulls life.

ONE PERSPECTIVE

The more comfort we seek, the louder discomfort screams.

Think about it. The more we attempt to stay comfortable, the smaller the comfort zone gets. It atrophies.

We become less comfortable with more and more situations and people, causing an avoidance addiction at every turn.

The less we stretch, the less we step into the unknown, the less risks we take, the quicker the walls close in on us in what we consider to be comfortable.

The result? Our approach to seeking comfort gives us the exact opposite outcome we desire.

The truth is, the more decisions we make strictly based on comfort, the more discomfort we will experience.

Not moving our bodies, lifting weights, stretching? The more pain we’ll experience in the future.
Spending money on a facade to maintain an image? Either we'll have to keep up with our lifestyle inflation or we'll eventually be broke because of it.
Avoid rejection professionally? You're avoiding success. Understand that if we celebrated the number of 'no's' we got, the more yes's we will experience.
Skip the hard conversations with the people we love most? Watch those relationships turn shallow, hollow, meaningless over time.

So how do we become more comfortable?

We increase our exposure to discomfort.

The more things we step into that are uncomfortable, the more we'll realize that our fear of discomfort is actually not scary at all, it's part of being human.

The more uncomfortable things we do, the larger our comfort zone will be.

The people that experience less and less fear over time are the ones that have stepped into the things they feared with courage, over and over.

And by doing that, gaining the internal knowledge and wisdom that most things are not to be feared, that is just the 2000 year old brain trying to keep us "safe."

Being judged isn't dangerous. It's what happens when you go for it and force others to reckon with their own inaction.

The dangers we label as dangerous simply aren’t so. They are simply mental gymnastics to keep us comfortable, but also trapped in perpetuity.

If you want more comfort, choose to walk through discomfort first.

That's the deal. That's always been the deal.

Onward and upward!

PS - Share this with anyone you can think of that has done great things but may be struggling!

LEAD & LEARN : WEEKLY PICK

PODCAST

Never Play it Safe with Chase Jarvis

The Rich Roll Podcast

This one lands hard. Chase Jarvis unpacks the illusion of safety and shows how leaning into risk and creativity can up-level both work and life. He and Rich Roll dig into how constraints, failure, intuition and play aren’t just side-notes, they’re tools. If you’re serious about doing more than just good enough, hit play.