If you want to grow, you should leave your comfort zone
Deliberately setting yourself an unpleasant task? Practically no one likes to do that. But it is precisely from such experiences that one can learn.
Feeling unwell can warn us of dangerous situations. But it can also be a good sign, as two psychologists report in the journalPsychological Science. From experiments with more than 2000 test subjects, Kaitlin Woolley of Cornell University and Ayelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago conclude: Discomfort usually means that one is making progress.
For their study, the psychologists accompanied, among other things, improvisation workshops for beginners in Chicago. Some of the more than 550 newcomers were told in advance that the goal of the exercise was to make them feel uncomfortable. To the other part, they said the goal was to develop new skills. Video recordings of the improvisations were later evaluated for the participants' stamina and willingness to take risks: How much did they go out of their way, and how long did they voluntarily stay in the spotlight?
Result: The subjects who were specifically asked to put themselves in a state of discomfort persevered longer and were more likely to push their limits. In addition, they were more likely to feel they had achieved their goals afterward. "They made more progress and learned more," Kaitlin Woolley reported in a news release.
In another experiment, the researchers had about 250 subjects write online about emotionally stressful experiences. Here, they also told one group in advance that unpleasant feelings that arose were the goal and a sign that the exercise was working. Afterwards, this group was more likely to believe that the exercise had helped them to grow emotionally; moreover, the participants were more likely to want to repeat the exercise than those in the control group.
The psychologists obtained comparable results in other experiments in which the volunteers had to complete unpleasant tasks: among other things, they had to deal with political opinion pieces in the media that contradicted their own. Positive experiences would be more motivating, to be sure. But to grow personally and professionally, people also need to put themselves in situations that challenge them, Woolley says. "When we step out of our comfort zone, we interpret that as a signal to be careful or to quit. But to be successful, we have to take risks sometimes."
Spectrum of Science
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