Uncomfortable is where the growth happens
This past week was full: forums on Gen Z in the workplace, one on safety and security, training for an upcoming speaking contest, and the ongoing juggle of building a service business.
When people ask how it’s all going, I could give the polished answer: “It’s great.” But the truth is more complex. It’s stretching. Challenging. Rewarding. It's also, at times, uncomfortable - and that's not a bad thing. Some days feel like progress; others, like learning in disguise.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, a coaching conversation reminded me why this feeling — the stretch, the tension, the uncertainty — matters so much.
“Uncomfortable is where the growth happens”
It came at the end of a coaching session during one of my 5 Days to Getting Ahead by Being More, Not Less, of You challenges. My client had just shared how confronting it felt to face certain truths about himself. How old patterns, long accepted as “just how I am,” were no longer serving him.
He paused, clearly unsettled but aware. I said quietly: “Uncomfortable is where the growth happens.”
He exhaled, smiled and replied: “That’s profound.”
It’s not that the words themselves are revolutionary. It’s that in that moment, they landed. Because he realised discomfort isn’t a detour from growth. It is the growth.
Learning to hold tension
This is what the Hold step in my Becoming Unapologetically You framework is about.
Hold is that sacred space between awareness and action — the moment when everything in you wants to retreat, but you choose to stay. You don’t rush to fix it or flee from it. You sit in the tension, allowing it to teach you something new about yourself.
That’s where transformation begins: not in comfort, but in confrontation.
Holding doesn’t mean standing still. It means resisting the urge to escape before the lesson has been learned. It’s learning to stay long enough to ask: What is this discomfort showing me? What rule or belief might no longer be serving me? What part of me is being invited to grow here?
Because sometimes the hardest part of growth isn’t necessarily moving forward - it’s not running away.
Growth in real time
If I’m honest, this lesson has been on repeat in my own life lately. Launching and growing a business means constantly straddling the line between what’s known and what’s next. Training for a speaking contest pushes me to confront the gap between comfort and courage. Even attending forums on leadership and safety reminds me: real learning happens when we’re willing to be uncomfortable — to listen to ideas that challenge our assumptions.
And, to add further spice to the conversation, the theme of the speaking competition is "Your biggest secret". Over the past week, I've been debating what that really means for me. I could play it safe and speak about my experience with multiple redundancies - I even have a (secret-ish) formula that helps others through it. But there's another story, far more personal, that I'm not sure is safe to share in a public forum where goodwill isn't guaranteed.
One of my weekly reflections summed it up: “Sometimes we have rules we’ve created for ourselves that no longer serve us.”
Those rules about what success should look like, what pace we should move at or what risks we shouldn’t take may keep us safe, but they may also keep us stuck. Breaking them might seem reckless but it could so easily be viewed as responsible growth.
The paradox of progress
What I’m learning through my clients, my own work and the messy middle of life is that comfort doesn’t always equal peace. Sometimes comfort is familiarity in disguise.
The real peace comes from knowing you’re growing, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s that quiet confidence that says, “I’m not there yet, but I’m no longer who I was.”
And often, that’s enough.
Final reflection
This week, I invite you to notice where discomfort is showing up in your life and, instead of pushing it away, try holding it. Ask yourself:
What might this moment be asking me to learn?
What (self-imposed) rules have I been following that no longer serve me?
Where might this discomfort actually be an invitation to grow?
Because if there’s one truth I keep coming back to (as a coach, a parent, a learner and a work-in-progress) it’s this:
Uncomfortable isn’t the obstacle. It’s the evidence you’re growing and the reminder that you're still becoming.
