Do What Makes You Uncomfortable

At an early age we’re taught to trust our gut. Your fight or flight responses are an innate part of decision making, but sometimes you have to think past your gut and think mind over matter. Embracing what makes you scared or uncomfortable is the fastest and most effective way to promote self growth.

“Do what makes you uncomfortable.” was a motto of one of my professor’s and it was one that several of us students picked up. His class involved projects so far out of my comfort zone that I actually considered dropping, but this message alone was all the reason to stay in the class.

One of the projects in this class was to create a blog post, which seriously had my palms sweating as we ready the syllabus. I fretted for weeks about what I should write about, writing, re-writing, and complaining only for me to end up starting my own blog several months later. Had I trusted my initial feeling and dropped this class, I wouldn’t have realized that blogging is something I’ve always wanted to do.

This was a huge turning point in my decision making. I, like most everyone else, had always been taught to play it safe. However, it was at this time I started to embrace the unknown having discovered how much there was left for me to discover. It’s very rare for an opportunity to present itself more than once and it would be a real shame to miss something so paramount because you were scared.

Do what makes you uncomfortable, then say yes and figure the rest out when the time comes.