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Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort (2022)

67 points by domofutu

by abhaynayar

0 subcomment

I relate to this a lot due to personal experiences in seeking discomfort for its own sake. I used to get anxious in social situations, to treat that I intentionally went into random social situations that would make me anxious. Over time, it does make you feel less anxious. But if you stop doing it, your anxiety creeps back.
I then realized that change has to be deeper on an identity and lifestyle level. "What is the kind of person you want to become, and what is the kind of lifestyle you want to live" - rather than doing one-off anxiety provoking tasks. In living up to your desired identity and lifestyle, if you face discomfort - THAT is a good discomfort to face.

by bawolff

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I feel like targetting discomfort specificly would lead to bad results. Feels like a pretty typical cause vs correlation thing.
Sometimes getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing.
Sometimes that feeling of discomfort is protecting you.
Doing that hobby you were always to nervous too try? probably a good source of discomfort to feel.
Taking sky diving lessons from the sketchy guy who is not really certified? That is probably the bad type of discomfort and you should listen to it.

by geoffcampbell64

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https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2022-woolley.pdf

by kelseyfrog

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My path toward personal growth aims toward discomfort. I'm confused; do other people not do this?
If I shied away from discomfort, I would be an angry, lonely, sheltered person and exactly the opposite of who I want to become.

by ImaCake

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>learning about gun violence.
Maybe this is helpful in the USA, but I hardly see how knowing anything about this counts as "personal growth"? There are plenty of things you can know that actively make you a worse person by making you depressed and thus less engaged with things you can actively act upon.

by profsummergig

10 subcomments

> we suggest that seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation
Can someone help me understand this please? With an example? I haven't read the paper, just the abstract. I can barely understand the abstract, I am not going to understand the paper.
Per the paper, does the "discomfort" need to be in the same arena as that of the "motivation" one wants?
E.g.: If I want to learn a new language, does the discomfort need to relate to the language, or is it enough to do something like taking cold showers?
(FWIW, I have a strong suspicion that most Psych papers, including this one, have inadequate evidence. But I still like to understand what they're claiming.)

by MrMcCall

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It is always discomforting to learn of our mistakes, failures, fallabilities, and other times we've caused unhappiness in others. The fact is, however, that those are the most fruitful and important experiences to learn from, for spiritual growth is always weighed against the unhappiness and happiness we've caused. Karma ensures that we feel some of what we've caused others, as a motivating feedback system, no matter how positive or negative their effects. As such, when we act right, we feel better because we are experiencing less negative feedback. We truly reap what we sow, and the crop is our happiness or unhappiness.
The spiritual path -- i.e. the Path of Love -- is the journey to learning how to cause more happiness and less unhappiness. Note that doing that is the most important way to really improve the society and cultures we are a part of.
Like Dunning-Kruger's true-experts in any field of endeavor, the seeker of self-improvement must humbly and honestly search themself to find out which of the vices we tend to use to justify our selfish ideals, attitudes, and behaviors. Once found, we must then ceaselessly fight against manifesting them and instead choose their virtuous counterparts. Compassion is the foundation of all the virtues, but we must develop and aim our moral compass.
To love someone is to want them to be happy such that you selflessly act for their benefit. That is the only goal of the spiritual path, for the universe really prefers us to explore its wonders in peace and happiness and utter enjoyment; Earth was made for just that. And yet, it's always our choice whether to harmonize with that optimal organization and participation, or selfishly avoid it if only by denying its optimality; to either increase one's humanity, or to fall short and descend further into callous disregard or even savagery.
"Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries." --Rumi

by vonnik

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This is also known as hormesis, a biological phenomenon where exposure to a low dose of a potentially harmful stressor (toxin, radiation, or environmental factor) leads to a beneficial adaptive response in an organism.
Examples include exercise, vaccination, caloric restriction. Many would argue that exposure to germs, stimulating the immune system, works the same way. Cognitively, examples would be desirable difficulty and deliberate practice in learning, and exposure therapy for phobias.
Ofc this is what Nietzsche meant when he said the thing about “what doesn’t kill you…”
The best way to “grow” or get better in most dimensions of strength and skill is to seek discomfort. The trick is get to get just the right amount for where you’re at, since too much is discouraging, and too little is boring. We seek out coaches and teachers in the hopes that they can trace the growth path for us.

by UltraSane

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I can attest that my greatest periods of personal growth came during times of greatest discomfort. My first job out of college was at a small IT consulting company where I managed the data center. This gave me complete access to the VMware cluster, the SAN storage array, every Cisco switch, router, and firewall, and root access to every VM running. I could create a LUN on the storage array, a VLAN on the switches, a subinterface on the router or firewall, a VM portgroup on VCenter, and a VM using all of them. It was incredibly stressful at first but I learned a ridiculous amount.

by bsenftner

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This is worded poorly, it is not "seeking discomfort" it is "seeking to understand what you fear" that generates personal growth.

by mettamage

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Yes Theory (YouTube channel) would love this study

by swayvil

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On the flipside, nothing will keep you nailed to the floor like a 24-7 omnipresent smorgasbord of tempting pleasures

by FollowingTheDao

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St. Francis of Assisi would like to have a word with all of you...

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by system2

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> Get full access to this article View all access and purchase options for this article.
Uhm, screw you?

by gregwebs

1 subcomments

Andrew Huberman discusses how the AMC structure in the brain gets bigger when we do things we don't want to do. It is bigger in those that live longer and have great mental health- it may also represent the will to live. Its one of the main places that the brain shrinks in aging Huberman explains this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHYynw7Yh4&t=305s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLb8_wgX50&t=2769s
If you enjoy something- the AMC doesn't grow. Question: what if something is really challenging but you want to do it?
Friction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLb8_wgX50&t=1235s