Discomfort Isn't the Enemy of a Meaningful Life… It's Sometimes the Price of One

**Matthew Gottesman** (0:02)
Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast where I create short, quick hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 835, discomfort isn't the enemy of a meaningful life. Sometimes it's the price of one.
I was watching a video on Instagram from Rich Roll. I'm going to actually play it here momentarily so you can hear what he was saying. And he was just talking about discomfort being sometimes the price of a meaningful life, in that you have to get used to being uncertain. You have to get used to taking chances and having faith that your intuition is right.
You have to make decisions that are different than the ones that are maybe keeping you in places that aren't serving you. Yes, we all know this. So I think it's great to have a deeper dive discussion about this because discomfort isn't what I think people think it is.
Here's what I mean by that. I always say comfort zones aren't so comfortable to me because if things are fairly stagnant, I feel like I'm not pushing the boundaries of my work, my purpose of things that I want to do. Now, do not mistake that with hustle or urgency or anything else. It just means I've got such an insatiable curiosity for what I'm here to do that I like to keep creating. I like to keep connecting with God and keep seeing all the ways in which I'm here to contribute. And it's different for each individual. It's different path for each individual. It's different process for each individual. It's a different amount of work for each individual. But I always say comfort zones are not so comfortable for me. Because I almost get anxious like, no, I'd like to do other things. I don't want to just rely on exactly where I'm at and then not be in the work in some way. And by the way, I'm not even just talking about work with, work that you do career-wise. I never want to get too comfortable, quote-unquote, in my health, in my relationships, in my finances. Like, I want to be present. This is about presence. And so I like that what Rich was saying, you know, was just kind of talking about, like on the other side of the discomfort is really everything that you want. And I think that's actually what's creating the real discomfort is you actually do know what you need to do. You do know what you want to do. You do know what you need to do. And the enemy can be so loud, the voice can be so loud and telling you, well, what if this happens and what about that? And, you know, and again, the body is systematically made for like, you know, to, you know, fight or flight mode and to keep you safe and all these things.
But what is safety? Is safety what we're taught in terms of, you know, these are the routes that you should take and these are the things you should do. And this is what success should look like and therefore, the body got programmed for that to look like safety. Or safety, trusting in yourself, personal development, you know, making decisions from a clear mind, making, making decisions for what, you know, brings you more sovereignty and ownership to your path versus everybody else telling you what it should look like. Right? So I want to talk about why the, the very thing that you've been avoiding, right? Maybe actually the doorway to everything you actually want. We already know this and we've heard this said in a thousand different ways. I just wanted to go in a deeper dive on that. So in this episode, we're going to talk about why discomfort isn't the enemy of a meaningful life. It's actually the price of one. How the fear of discomfort is quietly running the ceiling of many people's lives. Right? The fear of discomfort is quietly running the ceiling.
You know, it's, it's either like, well, how will that ever happen? Or, you know, who am I in this world? And well, the vision is so big and how's it going to happen? Well, welcome to faith.
We're not asked to know all the answers. None of us know them. None of us do. Now, the vision becomes clearer and clearer. And as I continue to answer my call, yeah, I experience more and more of the how coming into play. And I love it. And it makes me even more grateful.