How to Overcome the Pain of Discomfort and Grow Your Business

If there’s one thing that has been my constant companion when I focus on growth in my business, it’s discomfort! The discomfort is always associated with doing something new, or doing it in a new way. Like learning how to do videos for marketing, or effectively managing a team. New is good in your business, because it means you’re experimenting, testing out what works and what doesn’t. It means your business is growing. It also means that you’re growing too. Growth of any kind, personal or business, means reaching that familiar edge and stepping beyond it. That can feel difficult, even painful at times! But here’s the thing – it is worth it. Here’s what I’ve learned when my clients and I step into discomfort:

• You learn so much. And you can teach what you learn, to your team or even your clients.
• You provide so much more value. What you offer your clients expands.
• You choose it. The longer you linger in comfort, the harder it is to move out. When you choose discomfort, you are acting from inner motivation, something that pulls you forward, more powerful than being pushed from outside.
• When you increase the pace of discomfort, it becomes the new normal. You get comfortable with discomfort.
• Your discomfort serves a higher purpose. You serve more people. You make a difference. You have more impact.

What’s your relationship with discomfort? Are you avoiding it and at the same avoiding things that would bring your message to more people? What if your discomfort is just part of having impact? If that’s how you choose to look at discomfort, then what would you be willing to do to make a difference with your business, to have impact? When you summon the courage to step past your edges, you’re calling on something greater within yourself. Your resilience. Your willingness to be challenged. The person you are becoming to have the expanded business you want to have. Choose discomfort, before discomfort chooses you. Be willing to nudge yourself out of your comfort zone. Be willing to be responsive to shifts in your market, to make changes, to experiment with something new. Be willing to imagine your business as something greater. Be willing to step out and up to that expanded you.