Comfort Is Not the Enemy. Avoiding Discomfort Is.
What to do when the present you unwrap isn’t the one you hoped for
This week I’ve been aware that my relationship with Christmas is changing.
For athletes and physically active people, this time of year often carries a quiet tension. It is framed as a season of comfort and indulgence, but it sits right alongside the pressure of the New Year waiting just behind it. Reflection becomes unavoidable, as does comparison. As a result, many people drift toward one of two reactions. Either we lean into comfort and feel guilty about it, or we swing hard in the opposite direction and attempt to punish ourselves back into discipline come January.
For me, I have run fewer miles than any year since I started running 17 years ago, by choice. I have had my longest period of unemployment since I was a student, not entirely by choice. I have spent more mornings at the beach, dipping in the ocean, than I ever imagined. I have also put together my most consistent period in the gym and developed skills I had never prioritised before (I can now do a muscle-up on the gymnastics rings). I ask myself which direction would I swing?
From the outside, my situation could look like inconsistency or comfort creeping in. From the inside, it has felt more like exposure to a different kind of challenge and a necessity to managing change. Being in a different environment highlighted that discomfort had not disappeared but had simply changed shape.
So maybe, like always, it’s not one or the other - it’s somewhere in the nuance.
Comfort is not the enemy of progress. Avoiding discomfort altogether is.
From a physiological perspective, adaptation only occurs when the body is exposed to a stimulus that nudges it away from homeostasis. That stimulus does not need to be maximal or dramatic. It simply needs to be sufficient. Too little challenge and nothing changes. Too much and the system becomes overwhelmed. Progress lives in the middle, where discomfort is present but tolerable.
This misunderstanding shows up clearly in running during a base phase. From the outside, base training can look comfortable because it is a lot of time at manageable paces, repetitive routes, fewer sharp sessions. It is often mistaken for maintenance or a lull before the real work begins. In reality, base phases are psychologically demanding. They require athletes to tolerate monotony, stay engaged without the reward of intensity, and trust adaptation that is happening quietly beneath the surface. Aerobic capacity, connective tissue, and movement efficiency are all being stressed, just without drama. The discomfort is not acute pain, but the restraint required to avoid chasing stimulation. Base training only feels comfortable if we misunderstand what challenge looks like.
The same principle applies psychologically. Discomfort acts as a learning signal. It tells us that something is new, unfamiliar, or demanding. That signal is not a warning to stop. It is information. When we respond to it intelligently, rather than emotionally, growth becomes possible.
This is where nuance matters.
Not all training stress is productive and not all discomfort is useful. There is a meaningful difference between exposure that builds capacity and overload that erodes it. Productive stress is specific, dosed, and recoverable whilst harmful stress is chronic, poorly targeted, or layered on top of an already exhausted system. During periods like Christmas and New Year, that distinction can become blurred leading to training becoming either something we avoid entirely or something we use to compensate for perceived excess. Neither approach reflects how adaptation actually works.
We do not need to eliminate comfort to grow. We need to avoid eliminating challenge.
What this season has reminded me is that growth does not stop when training looks different. It stops when we stop engaging with challenge altogether. Comfort becomes problematic only when it turns into avoidance, or when we protect ourselves from any form of difficulty, friction, or uncertainty. We can still enjoy the festive season because progress is built through intelligent exposure, not constant strain.
As you move through Christmas and toward the New Year, it may be worth asking a different question then. Not whether you are doing enough, but whether you are still allowing yourself to be challenged in the ways that matter. Not whether you are comfortable, but whether you are avoiding discomfort altogether.
Growth does not require guilt. It requires honesty, patience, and a willingness to stay engaged with the process.
Comfort is not the enemy. Avoiding discomfort is.
– Ron.
Merry Christmas Everyone
Want more?
Here’s some of my classics this year:
