The Beauty of Discomfort: how what we avoid is what we need by Amanda Lang

Why do some people drive change while others are blindsided by it?

Why are some people able to adapt and thrive?

How can we make change easier?

Truly successful people don’t merely tolerate discomfort—they embrace it and seek it out again and again. Business founders and university students, top athletes and couch potatoes, meditation gurus and military leaders all have very different ways of coping with discomfort, but the most successful among them believe that withstanding discomfort is a skill that has helped them in hugely positive ways. Some were forced into discomfort through no choice of their own—a life-altering illness, a business fiasco—while others signed up for it because they had goals they were determined to achieve.

Some degree of discomfort is inherently good for you. It can spur you on, pushing you to test your own limits. Learning to tolerate, and then embrace, discomfort is the foundation for change, for individuals and businesses alike. Becoming comfortable with discomfort won’t just make us more resilient and more successful, however we define success. It will also make us happier.

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AMANDA LANG is a bestselling author and an award-winning business journalist who has been covering business in North America for twenty years. She is an anchor at BNN Bloomberg, and for six years was CBC’s senior business correspondent, reporting for its flagship nightly news program, The National, as well as hosting The Exchange with Amanda Lang, a daily business program that aired on the CBC News Network. She lives in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter @AmandaLang.