If you need to learn something new, then the appearance of negative emotions will testify to your success.
Getting out of your comfort zone inevitably accompanies any attempt at personal growth. For example, if you want to learn how to speak well in front of an audience, then practicing this, overcoming your tongue-tiedness, insecurity and embarrassment, you will feel very strange and awkward.
Since the unpleasant feeling of discomfort usually appears much earlier than the first signs of progress, it can become a barrier to success. We decide it’s not worth it, we just give up and don’t reach our goal.
But if we change our attitude towards discomfort and begin to perceive it as a positive sign, as something to strive for (instead of avoiding), then this way of thinking will motivate us to continue moving towards the goal. This conclusion was reached by psychologists from Cornell and Chicago Universities (USA), whose article In the magazine Psychological Science.
The researchers conducted five experiments in which more than two thousand volunteers took part. All experiments were related to personal growth — in the process, participants received some new skills.
So, during one of the experiments, 557 people learned the art of improvisation. The exercise was called «Pass the Focus» — one of the participants moved around the room in an impromptu dance as much as he wanted, while the rest of the group had to freeze in place. At some point, the moving person decided to transfer the «focus» to someone else. That, in turn, began to move, and then it was repeated all over again.
Before starting the experiment, half of the participants were told that their goal was to feel awkward and uncomfortable, and these feelings would be a sign that their studies were progressing normally. The rest of the participants were simply given instructions, but the discomfort was not mentioned.
When scientists analyzed the videos recorded during the master class, it turned out that the participants who were targeted for the desire for discomfort behaved differently than the rest — they were “in the light of the spotlights” longer before transmitting the “focus”, and they also improvised much freer and more relaxed, not being afraid to seem strange and ridiculous.
According to the researchers, this suggests that during the task, participants from the “uncomfortable” group were more motivated. The survey conducted at the end of the experiment also showed that many participants were confident that during the master class they managed to achieve their goals.
The results of other experiments have confirmed that the pursuit of discomfort can motivate people in a variety of situations, helping to overcome difficulties and grow above themselves.