The Uncomfortable

“To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.”
— Richard G. Scott

My mom recently shared this quote with me and it really stands out to me. This quote so well sums up one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in this life. In order to progress and grow, we must do something that is out of our comfort zone. We must leap into the uncomfortable! Whether for us that is running a little further, sitting next to someone we don't know, extending our study by a few minutes or hours or going further in depth, asking new questions, doing the unpopular, serving a mission, leaving home for college, trying a new receipe, changing your perspective! There are a trillion ways we can stretch ourselves by trying something uncomfortable- something we have never before done.
My recent goal has been to run a 5k this summer. This last week I have signed up for one and started training more seriously. I had a goal to run 3 miles in a certain time- a time goal I had never before attained- which today I accomplished. In order to reach this goal, I've run 15 miles in the last 5 days- something I had never before done. Running has taught me several very meaningful-for-me lessons. One of those, probably the first and biggest, is that when we do uncomfortable things consistently, they become comfortable. We become comfortable in what were once uncomfortable situations.
With running, there are all sorts of things that one can perceive as uncomfortable: the heavy breathing, the sore legs, the expanding lungs, the beating heart, the unfermiliar rythm of the feet against the ground. But the more you experience these at first seemingly uncomfortable things, the less uncomfortable they become, the more comfortable you become, and you may just in fact grow to really love these things! You suddenly love the rythm of your feet against the pavement, the sand, the tredmil, the grass...everything! And you love to feel your heart pumping because it makes you feel alive. And your breathing becomes less heavy and it doesn't scare you anymore, it just makes you smile. And afterwards when your legs are a bit sore, you find satisfaction in knowing I'm getting stronger.  And once you become comfortable running one mile, or two, or three, or more, or you become comfortable running 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, the more you realize "Hey, I can do this!" which gives you a little more courage to stretch a little further! Another important lesson I've learned in life and while running too: You can do hard things. And once you do them you will realize that you can do them. And knowing this can keep us going even when things get tough. We can always look back and know "I did that hard thing, so I can do this hard thing."
Just like the gospel of Jesus Christ, we come to know things by doing them. When we do hard things, we learn that we can do them. When we are obedient to commandments, we learn that keeping them brings us greater joy than we ever could have found on our own. When we choose God's path, it isn't until we start walking it that we realize how much better it is than our own. Life and progressing is about doing. And by doing we learn. "Faith without works is dead."  And faith with works is LIFE! Is JOY! Is PROGRESSION!
“To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things you have never before done.”