Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
The title might be a little click-baity. I’ll own that.
But I want to share something that stuck with me recently. A couple of weeks ago, I facilitated a change management session for a community college. Teams from different departments were tasked with designing a unified product to promote their programs.
I was mid-spiel about psychological safety– the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking– and breaking down what that actually looks like:
Feeling safe enough to ask “dumb” questions
Admitting when you don’t know something
Challenging a recommendation
Speaking up about a process concern
These aren’t radical ideas but good reminders of what risk-taking looks like in action. Some folks were engaged, nodding along. Others gave me polite, passive smiles. And that was fine. They didn’t know me from Adam– why should they trust what I had to say?
So, I turned up the heat.
“You’re supposed to be uncomfortable,” I said. I let the words settle and locked eyes with a few people. “This is supposed to feel uncomfortable.”
People shifted. A couple put their pens down. I had their attention. Unfortunately, I also immediately regretted wearing leather pants.
I pushed forward.
There’s a difference between being psychologically unsafe (being bullied, shut down, or ignored) and being uncomfortable (challenging your own thinking, stepping into the unknown, and pushing against the status quo.)
Discomfort isn’t a sign something is wrong– it’s the price of progress when pushing for change.
The Myth of Comfortable Growth
There’s a persistent belief that good culture = comfort. That if a team gets along, has a few office parties, and doesn’t talk behind each other’s backs, they’ll grow and innovate naturally. Author’s note: That’s not exactly what defines good culture, but that’s a different blog for a different time. That if we’re all “good” workers, the best ideas will just reveal themselves.
That’s… not how this works.
Growth, innovation, and competition require change. And change? Change is uncomfortable. It forces us to stretch, rethink, and challenge what we’ve always done while betting on ourselves that what we’re moving toward will be better than what we’re leaving behind.
Here’s why discomfort feels so hard: Our brains hate it.
An article by Lisa Feldman Barrett in the Guardian suggests that variation makes up life, but we’re bad at embracing it. When exposed to something new, your brain has to work harder, sometimes causing a fear response. This is why your body thinks it's being chased by a lion when IT suggests shifting from Gmail to Outlook. The brain prioritizes efficiency and pattern recognition, defaulting to the most straightforward, least energy-expensive route. When faced with uncertainty, the amygdala– our fear center– activates, making us instinctively resist, procrastinate, or shut down.
But businesses, colleges, government agencies, and any corporation with people to serve or products to build can’t afford to operate on instinct alone. McKinsey research finds that 70% of change initiatives fail due to a lack of engagement and resistance. If we don’t learn to sit in the discomfort of change, we risk more than we’re willing to admit.
Boiling Water and Better Ideas
I joked with the group that my wife is the chef in our house, but I do know one thing about spaghetti: If the water isn’t boiling, you’re not eating dinner.
Boiling water is dynamic and active—it rolls, bubbles, and simmers against the sides of the pot. If you stick your hand in, you’ll get burned. But once you let the pasta sit in the rolling heat, it transforms. What starts as stiff, breakable noodles becomes flexible, cohesive, and actually edible.
Change management is like making pasta.
We are the noodles.
Change is the water.
The pot is psychological safety.
Spaghetti is innovation.
If we never let ourselves sit in the heat, we never transform. And if we don’t build the right container– an environment where people feel safe enough to withstand the discomfort– we don’t get the best ideas, just the easiest ones.
Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety is the #1 predictor of high-performing teams. But safety doesn’t mean comfort—it means creating an environment where people can challenge, push, and debate without fear of retaliation. Psychological safety won’t reduce the heat but will ensure the water doesn’t spill over and scald the team. And that’s the role of leaders: to create a space where challenge and friction lead to progress rather than paralysis.
Don’t Flinch
When change starts to roll, most of us instinctively try to turn down the heat (unless you’re a change masochist like me, in which case, welcome; it’s a small, intimate group we have). We smooth things over, avoid the tough conversations, and convince ourselves that friction = failure. It doesn’t.
The goal isn’t to eliminate discomfort but to leverage it.
Leaders who embrace controlled discomfort see higher engagement, stronger collaboration, and more resilient teams. Harvard Business Review studies have shown that leaders who consistently engage in productive discomfort—seeking diverse perspectives and challenging assumptions—lead teams with higher innovation rates.
So next time you feel discomfort creeping in, don’t flinch—lean in. That water’s boiling, but you’re cooking something fabulous. Oh, and skip the leather pants when talking about discomfort. That kind of heat is worth avoiding.