Movement creates momentum.
There is no version of meaningful transformation that doesn’t include discomfort.
There’s a strange myth we carry around about growth: that it’s supposed to feel good. That if we’re on the right path, things will click into place. That clarity will arrive like sunlight breaking through fog. That change, when it’s “meant to be,” will feel smooth, empowering, and energising.
But more often, change feels like discomfort. Like friction. Like uncertainty you can’t quite name.
The truth is, growth rarely announces itself as progress. It feels more like confusion. Like standing in a room that no longer fits, unsure of where the door is. The furniture is familiar, but something’s shifted. You don’t quite belong here anymore.
And that’s the first sign that change is working.
We outgrow people, places, habits, and beliefs. We begin to see new possibilities, and with them come new responsibilities. That expansion sounds exciting until it actually starts happening. Because growth doesn’t just invite you forward. It also asks you to leave something behind.
That’s where the discomfort lives. Not in the unknown, but in the letting go.
It’s hard to release the identity that made you feel safe. It's hard to step out of roles where you were praised, needed, and understood. It’s hard to walk away from things that once worked, even if they no longer do. And it’s especially hard to walk toward something that doesn’t have a guarantee. But that’s the price of change.
There is no version of meaningful transformation that doesn’t include discomfort.
“You are not meant to feel happy during growth,” said Brianna Wiest. “You are meant to feel uncomfortable.”
We don’t get to skip this part.
The cocoon, for the caterpillar, isn’t a spa retreat. It’s a breakdown. A surrender. A slow turning into something unrecognisable. There’s no going back and no clear picture of what comes next. Just the faith that something better is being formed in the dark.
It’s the same with us.
We want change to be clean. We want the before and after, without the messy middle. But the messy middle is where the magic happens. That’s where the old stories burn off. That’s where resilience is built. That’s where we find out what we’re made of.
It takes courage to stay in that middle space.
To say, “I don’t have it all figured out, but I’m still moving.”
To hold the tension between the past that no longer fits and the future that’s not yet clear.
To keep walking when the only certainty is your own heartbeat.
But that’s what real change requires.
Not perfection. Not confidence. Not ease.
Just the willingness to endure the stretch.
Because change doesn’t come to reward your comfort. It comes to reward your persistence.
You are not falling apart. You are being reshaped.
You are not lost. You are being redirected.
You are not failing. You are evolving.
And evolution hurts.
But pain is not the enemy; stagnation is.
There is something on the other side of this discomfort that you cannot yet imagine. And you don’t have to see it clearly to move toward it. You just have to trust that growth doesn’t always feel like rising. Sometimes it feels like unravelling.
So let it unravel.
Let yourself be changed by the work. By the stretch. By the sacred, shapeless place in between.
Endure it not forever, but long enough to get to the other side.
Because something inside you is being built.
And it’s worth the discomfort.