A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.
The often-quoted phrase above pretty much sums up this article. When you are comfortable with life, you have ceased to grow as an individual. Therefore, experiencing uncomfortable feelings is actually a sign that you are going through a period of change.
Or, to put it another way, when you’re comfortable, you remain stationary on life’s path, whereas feelings of discomfort come from bravely treading the path to see where it leads.
Here are 20 such feelings that indicate you are growing as a person.
1. You feel directionless.
It might seem paradoxical to suggest that you are on the right path when you don’t know which direction to head in, but by the simple realization that you are lost, you actually begin to find yourself. It is by reaching this point that you ask all those difficult questions about life.
2. You feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders.
When you awaken to the responsibility you have for your own life, you might feel a sense of heaviness. You understand, now, that you are the only person who can be held accountable for the life you choose to lead. If you want to turn your dreams into a reality, it is you who will have to take control and make it happen.
3. You fear potential failure.
After realizing your responsibility, you might also begin to experience a nagging sense of doubt; a fear that if you try to achieve your goals, you put yourself at risk of failing. This fear only grows when you reach the inevitable conclusion that you have no choice but to enact change if you are to quell the discontent that is brewing in your heart.
4. You feel intimidated by the scale of change.
Alongside the fear of failure, when you decide that change is inevitable, you quickly become intimidated by the sheer number of things that you, all of a sudden, wish to change. You don’t think that you’ll be able to handle so many things at once; that you are incapable of doing what needs to be done.
5. You feel time is whizzing by too quickly.
Even if you can figure out a way to put your plans into action, you can’t help but feel that time is not on your side. The weeks, months and years seem to fly by and you sense that you don’t have enough of them left to reach your ideal desintation.
6. You feel exhausted by the pace of life.
The life you lead right now seems so hectic to you; every day leaves you feeling emotionally drained, and you look forward to your holidays just to take a break from the ceaseless cycle of repetitive habit and duty.
7. You feel intolerant of negative/spiteful/malicious people.
You are no longer so willing to put up with people whose words and actions betray their negative and hurtful ways. You now feel a burning desire to put as much distance between them and you as possible, because their very presence brings you down.
8. You dislike modern superficiality.
You just can’t understand why so many people are obsessed with the way they look and the things they own. You don’t get designer clothing, fake tans, cosmetic surgery, bling, or any other trap of superficiality. To you, the way people look has no bearing on what they are like as individuals.
9. You feel disheartened by the direction society is taking.
From your point of view, society does not seem to be heading in a very progressive direction. You feel that the modern world is creating more problems than it is solving, and that it is only a matter of time before things go seriously wrong. You dream of a fairer, more caring future where everyone has equal opportunity and wealth isn’t so skewed towards the richest 1%.
10. You feel frustrated by the complacence of others.
Coupled with your dismay at how society is changing, you feel a sense of frustration at how complacent many people seem to be about it. You are trying to do your bit to tackle climate change, widening inequality, and growing global instability, but it annoys you to see how many people show little or no care for these important issues.
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11. You feel insignificant among the universe.
Sometimes you feel as though you are just a tiny, unimportant piece of an infinitely complex puzzle and that your achievements don’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things.
12. You grieve friendships that fade away.
What matters to you most when it comes to friendship is a genuine bond that isn’t founded merely on a long history of knowing each other. You allow yourself to drift apart from those with whom you don’t have this connection and your circle of friends grows smaller. But you still feel a sense of loss as you say goodbye to these people.
13. You want to spend more time alone.
You now, more than ever, enjoy spending time alone so that you may throw off the worries and anxieties in your life and feel the freedom that this provides. You feel the pull of nature and of escaping into it, where you can be at one with your thoughts and with yourself.
14. You’re scared that people won’t like who you’re becoming.
You see yourself changing, and you know that this is now unstoppable, but you are afraid that the important people in your life – your family and friends – might not understand what’s happening to you. You worry that they will try to resist your change or even resent you for changing.
15. You feel as though there are many missing pieces.
Wherever you are on your journey, you can’t help but feel that there are pieces of the puzzle which are still missing or hidden from view. You sense that there is more to come, but you aren’t yet able to see what this may involve. All you know is that what you have now, and what you can see of the future, isn’t all that there is.
16. You fear the risks up ahead.
Change almost inevitably involves risk, and you have an underlying sense of fear about what these risks might be. Whether they involve your physical security, your mental well-being, or your spiritual serenity, you are uneasy about the potential harm that might come your way.
17. You are nervous about finding your voice.
You have plenty to say, but you are not sure how to say it. You want to stand up, make your voice heard, and make your vote count, but you are hesitant because you don’t know how this might be perceived by others.
18. You feel overwhelmed with possibilities.
Laid out before you are the almost never-ending potentialities of your life, and you can’t fathom how you will ever be able to choose between them. With each choice that you make, you feel as though many other possibilities are swept aside never to be realized, and this makes you anxious about making the right decisions.
19. You regret things from your past.
Knowing what you know now, you are unable to look back on your past without seeing many things that you wish you could change. You feel regrets about how you acted, how you treated others, and what your priorities were. You feel that you have wasted some of your precious life.
20. You struggle with a sense of meaningless.
From your current position in life, you cannot figure out what the grand meaning of it all is. You often wonder whether there is any purpose to it whatsoever, and you occasionally feel numb to the reality that exists around you.
