About a year ago I joined a new art class. It was local, the timing suited me, and I had been wanting to make more of an effort to bring out my ‘creative side’, so I went for it. What I didn’t realise until I got to the first session was that this wasn’t a class following a set programme, with a new cohort of students every few months. This was a steady group, many of whose members had been there for years, and which rarely saw new entrants. I was the only new joiner for many months.
This art form worked in a particular way with a very specific technique and certain key equipment – this is why there was a class running, as even with years of tuition pupils still needed guidance. I had not worked with any of these techniques or equipment before, and I could tell immediately that I was going to stick out. Try as I might to learn quickly, in the first few sessions I could feel that I was slowing the class down, making repeated mistakes, and frustrating the instructor with my lack of progress.
It was really difficult. But that was the joy of it. I had chosen to put myself in this difficult situation, I wasn’t at risk of any danger or hardship, I was just having a hard time. I had signed up to this class to try something new, and I was definitely getting that. I was reminded of a very simple but profound realisation outlined by Roz Savage, a woman who left both her job and her husband to row solo across the Atlantic in 2005. As you might imagine, she finds the experience quite challenging. One day she is so frustrated, exhausted and lonely that she goes up to the front of the boat and begins to scream at the water. This venting of her frustration leads to an epiphany.
She writes: “When I was preparing for this, every time someone asked me why I was doing it I said I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. And getting out of my comfort zone is, by definition, going to be uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable doesn’t mean I’m failing, it means I’m succeeding. The impact of the epiphany caused me to lose my grip on the roll bar and I lost my balance. I nearly tumbled head-first into the water, but I regained my handhold just in time and considered this startling new discovery.”
In many ways this is a very obvious statement, but the clear way that Roz expresses it made me stop and think. She continues: “If I could find the strength to stay out here, in the zone of my discomfort, eventually my bubble of comfort would expand, and catch up with me. Its boundary would extend to include this place which right now felt so new and scary. Given enough time and repetition, the uncomfortable would become comfortable, and I would have achieved my objective. Until now I had not appreciated that the discomfort was an integral and necessary part of the process, but now I could see my situation from a different perspective. I perceived that discomfort was actually my friend, because it meant that I was on the right track.”
I think it’s important to emphasise that Roz is speaking about discomfort, not hardship – there is a limit to this theory and it isn’t advisable to push yourself too far in the name of personal growth. On top of this it’s not always the right time to seek out discomfort, sometimes just getting through each day is challenge enough. But sometimes in those tough moments it can help to think of the positive side of that discomfort. I began to relish being the worst student in my art class, and eventually, after much tutting and headshaking and having to re-do poorly executed tasks, I can say that I have improved! I suspect my learning curve will continue to rise steeply for some time, but I love this new skill with all its challenges.