How to Break Your Addiction to Comfort

In this episode of The Fuck It Shift, Adam Ross breaks down why feeling stuck often has less to do with a lack of opportunity—and more to do with becoming addicted to comfort.

Adam talks about the everyday habits that quietly keep people in the same place: late-night scrolling, drinking, smoking, partying, staying up too late and following routines that require almost no discomfort or personal growth.

He explains why the things we enjoy most can sometimes become the very things holding us back. When every day is built around what feels familiar, easy and predictable, it becomes difficult to understand why our lives aren’t moving forward.

This episode is about learning to recognize comfort before it becomes a cage.

Adam shares how losing his business, income, car and home forced him into a life where discomfort was unavoidable. The shift began when he stopped seeing each obstacle as proof that life was against him and started treating it as something he had to move through.

He also explains why he still deliberately does something uncomfortable every day—whether that means getting out of bed to train, having a difficult meeting or completing the task he would rather avoid.

Because the battle isn’t really you against the world.

It’s you against the voice that keeps making deals for one more comfortable night, one more distraction and one more day without changing.

You don’t have to give everything up at once.

But you owe it to yourself to find out what could happen if, for the next 30 or 60 days, you stopped choosing what feels easiest—and started choosing what helps you grow.

Socials:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fuck It Shift Podcast. I'm Adam Ross, and I'm joined by Jay, producer Jay, as always, who's going to hit me with a question.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Adam, what would you tell somebody that feels like they're stuck or just not growing?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

If you're stuck or you're not growing, or that's how you feel, you got to get comfortable chasing discomfort. And what I mean by that is you're accepting the situation and choosing to complain about the situation rather than taking the discomfort using it as fuel to grow. Listen, give up drinking, give up late-night scrolling, give up smoking, give up partying, invest in yourself, do it for 30, 60 days, and then see if there's a difference in where your life trajectory is heading. It doesn't have to be dramatic. Everybody in their 20s and 30s has got comparison disease and is looking at the next guy, looking at their cup and seeing how full their cup is rather than pouring into their own. We've mentioned this before, Jay. It is so powerful for you to invest in yourself during times of growth than rather looking over the fence and seeing what your neighbor's doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

When you were rebuilding your life, did you ever feel like you came to a point where it's just like, I'm working so hard, but I don't see the results yet? And I do feel stuck. And if so, how did you get through that?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

If you spend your life on Easy Street or looking for Easy Street in this time of rebuilding or this time of you deciding what you want to do in the next chapter of your life, you're never going to be satisfied because you are addicted to comfort. It's comfortable to make a salary that covers your car payment, your mortgage, your extra activities, maybe a little bit for investing, but you're relying on that daily pressure of as long as that company I work for pays me, as long as that money never changes, as long as my situation doesn't change. And then all of a sudden something happens, life gets discomfort or is uncomfortable, and it's Panic City. You should constantly be chasing discomfort. Things that make you uncomfortable, the things you don't want to give up, the things you don't want to do is usually the baseline or the secret to unlocking growth in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

If somebody's listening and kind of is like, yeah, I do understand that, but what I don't get is how do I seek discomfort? Are there steps that I can just do I just kind of shut it down and be like, okay, that looks hard. Let's go do it. Um I know there's no playbook to seek out discomfort, but do you have any kind of tips or tricks on how to go to that route? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

All that shit that you love to do that's easy, that takes very little effort and makes you feel good, those are the things you should stop doing. Those are the things that are actually the comfort level you've accepted that are stopping you from growing. So if you could list those out and you would say to myself, Well, I I really like to lay in bed and late night scroll for an hour. That makes me feel good. I can see all the other bullshit that's going on in someone else's lives that's not mine, and I'm satisfied, and then I go to sleep. That's the last thing you put into your brain before you go to sleep. Cut that. That would be uncomfortable. Get up early, that would be uncomfortable. Break your daily routine. If you want to find what makes you comfortable, break your daily routine. And all of a sudden you'll realize actually, uh, my daily routine is completely stuck on comfort. I get to the car, I go to my favorite coffee place, I get my favorite breakfast order, I get there just before the boss. I do my work, I check the clock, I go for my break. There's a lot of things that you're doing almost subconsciously out of complete comfort that are keeping you stuck where you are today. Yet you complain that you're not reaching a certain level or a certain plateau in life, but you're not willing to break down any of the things. You leave right at five o'clock. You don't put any extra time into growing your own education. You don't do anything extra, you do just whatever makes you comfortable. And that is why you're struggling, and that is why you're not growing. The second you make a list of all the things you love to do in a daily routine and habit that make you feel good, and then don't do those anymore and do the opposite, is when you'll see yourself grow.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Do you have a specific example when looking back at your life when you had to rebuild of something that was very comfortable to you that you enjoyed doing, that you had to give up? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I had a business and I had a paycheck and I didn't have to shop on a calculator. The second everything stopped, my life was completely uncomfortable. No home, no place to live, no money, no car. So I walked discomfort every single day. Did I love it? No, I bitched about it and complained about it. It wasn't until I learned to understand that the roadblocks that were in front of me were a challenge for me to get through that actually, my own body, my own mind, everything completely changed and started to grow. But I had to adopt that I was no longer on Easy Street and I had to face a discomfort every single day. It is not comfortable to go from driving a car to taking the bus or asking for rides. But I had to show up every day. The option of giving up or laying in bed all day and not being the man I wanted to be was not on the table for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So the idea or the formula kind of is if you want to get to X, seek discomfort to get there, to change to change your life. I think you know what I mean. Um, in your position now, do you still seek discomfort? Why or or why not?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Every day I make sure that I'm doing something I don't want to do. That's the secret. The things that you don't want to do are the things that will actually grow you. I may not want to get up every day uh at the time I do and hit the gym. There are days I don't feel like it. I'm sore. Uh, I probably need a little more recovery. I might modify things in the gym, but I still get my ass out of bed and do it. Um, I may not want to have the meeting or do the next step or the next task that may grow my company, but I know it's gonna grow the company, so I'm gonna do it because even though it's uncomfortable and it's stressful and there's not a lot of time on my on my side for that particular day, I'm doing it anyway. And when you learn to deprive yourself of the comfort in the routine, you actually, there's studies that prove this, you actually increase your lifespan because you're able to put off comfort and go after discomfort that build longevity, build your receptors to behave different in stressful situations. So it is worth it for your own personal investment in your life to stop doing things that make you comfortable. It doesn't mean you have to give them all up today. But if you did make that list, I really like watching Netflix till three o'clock in the morning. I love playing FIFA to three o'clock in the morning. I love ordering Uber Eats at midnight just because I stayed up too late and I'm hungry. It's a no-brainer. Stop doing that. That's comfort. Uber Eats delivers it right to your door. Netflix gives you something new to watch almost every day. But are you really doing the best with your time? Or are you just being comfortable?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Got one last question before we wrap this up. And I want to see if we can kind of relate it to somebody or uh maybe an example if somebody's listening to be like, yeah, that's me, that's what I do. Why do you think that people choose comfort over discomfort? And and we've written about this on the Instagram page a lot, that we know what we need to do. We just know it's uncomfortable. But why do you think people are not choosing the uncomfortable part? Why are they so easily swayed to the other when they know the decision they're supposed to make will get them ahead?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Well, I'll answer it really easy. Do you think that all comfort food is good for you? No. And do you know when you're consuming the comfort food that it's good for your body? No. Do you know yellow dye or red dye, it's not good for your body? You do. But you do it anyway because it tastes good, it's comfortable, reminds you of something. So to answer that question, why do we do it? We make choices, we make deals with ourselves internally all the time. You know that Oreos can be don't melt with a blowtorch, but you eat one anyway. Because it tastes good, because it feels good, it reminds you of when you were little. You are having an internal battle with yourself. That's the game. This is the entire game you're playing. You versus you for the rest of your life. The shit you tell yourself that's real, that's not real, and the constant battle in between. I encourage you to get uncomfortable. And when you do things that are comfortable and you know that they're wrong for you, you know that smoking's not good for you, you know that getting hammered every day is not good for you. Then to have a conversation, win the internal battle, and tell yourself, no, I am not making that. I am making the choice to be uncomfortable. I am no longer going to do X, and I'm gonna give myself because I love myself enough and I love the people around me enough. I'm gonna give myself 30 days, 60 days. You owe it to yourself. Till next time, Jay. I'll catch you on the other side.