How to Create Discomfort in Your Life to Pursue Higher Levels of Growth

William Eckstrom is the President and founder of the EcSell Institute. Bill has spent his entire career in the sales arena; the first 14 years in personal production and then 13 in various sales leadership roles.

His management career began in 2000 as a District Manager for a medical equipment company and was promoted to U.S. Director of Sales in 2003. In 2004, Bill was lured away to become Senior Vice President of Business Development for a publicly traded healthcare organization. In 2008, he founded the EcSell Institute to fill a void he witnessed and personally experienced in the sales leadership

Favorite Success Quote

“The constant facade of order hides the wilderness that is craving to seek out and teach us that life wasn’t created to be what we think it is. Beyond words we must experience the wilderness to be taught what otherwise cannot be known.” ~Dr. Serene Jones

Key Points

1. We Only Grow in a State of Discomfort 

We live in an age of unprecedented comfort.

Things are easier today in 2017 (or whenever you are reading this) than they have ever been before.

If we get hot, we turn up the AC. If we get bored, we open up YouTube. If we are hungry, we order a pizza.

Life is too darn easy!

And with this ease, has come a disease that is plaguing society.

The disease of stagnation.

The more comfortable you become, the less drive and ambition you have to grow, create, and build a better life for yourself.

The more comfortable you become, the easier it is to relegate your dreams, desires, and aspirations to the realm of “someday”.

Unless you are facing massive discomfort in your life, then odds are, you are slowly dying.

True growth, real, visceral growth is always predicated by discomfort.

If you are living a mediocre life and want to break free to achieve levels of success and happiness that you have been searching for for so long, then you must get uncomfortable.

It’s as simple as that.

It’s not pretty and it’s not easy… but it is the truth.

You need to actively seek out discomfort in your career, your personal growth, and your physical health.

If your job isn’t inspiring you, then find ways that you can take on new and uncomfortable responsibilities or quit.

If you are not growing as a man and becoming stronger and more grounded each and every day, then find mentors and friends inspire you to level up your game and quit playing it small.

If you are not constantly pushing the limits of your body and breaking through to new feats of strength, speed, and agility, then get your butt in the gym today and start sculpting yourself into a stronger man.

Gentlemen, if you are not growing you are dying.

It’s time to cut the crap and start living life.

And it all starts by stepping outside what is easy and embracing discomfort.

2. Focus on Yourself First

If you have ever been on an airplane, then you are well aware of the boring (and often ignored) safety briefings at the beginning of each flight.

But if you pay special attention during those briefings you will notice something interesting.

The flight attendants will always tell you that, in the event of a crash, you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping anyone around you, including your children.

And while this might sound selfish and downright barbaric to some of you, it comes with good reason.

If you black out on during the crash while trying to help someone else, then what have you accomplished?

You have likely killed yourself and sealed the other person’s fate as well.

And this lesson is applicable in all areas of life.

If you are not taking care of yourself, if you are not taking the time to grow yourself, mentally, spiritually, and professionally, then what use do you have to the rest of the world?

If you are so strung out on projects and problems that you can’t think straight and need a double shot of espresso and a line of cocaine just to function, do you really think that you will be able to be the man that you woman needs you to be? That your family needs you to be? That your friends need you to be?

No!

Absolute selflessness is the ultimate selfishness.

It is only by taking care of yourself first that you can truly serve others.

If you want to truly serve your team, your loved ones, and your friends, then start by serving yourself.

Take time in solitude each day to meditate and be alone with your thoughts.

Take care of your health.

Take whatever time and resources are necessary to ensure that you can show up fully charged and alive.

Because when you are can unleash yourself on the world with power and energy, that’s when you can serve others and make the biggest impact.

3. Life Happens for You Not to You

Each and every day you have a choice.

You can choose to believe that the circumstances and the events in your life are happening to you.

Or you can choose to believe that they are happening for you.

When you believe that life happens to you, you disempower yourself, rob your life of meaning and purpose, and will get lost in the downward spiral of negativity.

But when you can expand your mind and embrace the belief that life is happening for you, you will begin to see lessons and opportunities where previously, there were only obstacles.

If Bill hadn’t been fired from his job, I would not be writing this article and would not have had the pleasure of interviewing him.

If I hadn’t quit corporate and endured the pain of sleeping on my brother’s couch and going broke to build this business, then I wouldn’t have been privileged to have the business and the impact that I have today.

Whatever situation you are facing in your life, whatever struggle you don’t believe you can overcome, choose to reframe it and see it as a gift from the universe.

See your pain as an opportunity to grow and become the man that you need to be so that you can truly achieve greatness when the time comes.

4.Realize that the Journey Never Ends

As you are reading or listening to this talk about discomfort, many of you might be thinking “When does this end? When can I sit back and relax and just enjoy all the comforts and ease life has to offer?”

The honest answer?

When you are dead.

You see, life is a journey.

And while you are on that journey, you are either growing or dying.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, how accomplished you are, or how much you have achieved, in every moment you can either choose growth or death.

If you look at the statistics you will see that a large number of retirees die shortly after they leave their jobs, businesses, and careers behind.

And this isn’t because of old age.

It’s because they were no longer growing. Because they no longer had a deeper purpose driving their lives.

So yes, you can embrace comfort and just coast through life.

Just be prepared for decades of unfulfilling drudgery and overwhelming emptiness.

However, if you are listening to this podcast, if you are actively seeking out information that will help you grow to become the man you were born to be, then I would guess that you have no interest in coasting.

And if this is true, then you need to embrace discomfort.

Embrace the fact that until the day you die, you will never arrive, you will never be done, and the journey will never end.

Life is nothing more than a continual set of problems for which you are tasked to find the solution.

If you do it right, these problems will grow in size and magnitude as you grow.

But they will never end.

Embrace the journey and get excited about discomfort.

5. Focus on Your Passions 

There has never been a time in human history where it was easier or more important to find and follow your passion.

With the power of the internet, you have the opportunity and the responsibility to find what you love and unleash it on the world.

It’s time to start living your life and stop living someone else’s.

Find what you love doing and go do that!

Stop squandering your time pursuing dreams and goals set by other people and start doing what you were meant to do.

If you get nothing else from this interview, get this.

You are meant to do so much more than you can imagine. But to do this, you must embrace discomfort and follow your passions no matter what the cost.

Period.