Quotes & Sayings About Uncomfortable Change

The act of running is simple, one foot in front of the other. The art of becoming a runner is achieved through a new mindset and commitment to change, especially if it's new to you. It's tough, challenging, painful, sometimes lonely, regularly uncomfortable and often excruciating ... but the rewards are second to none. — Terry Lander

Change is uncomfortable. Write that down. — Justin Bieber

When we apologize for something we've done, make amends, or change a behavior that doesn't align with our values, guilt - not shame - is most often the driving force. We feel guilty when we hold up something we've done or failed to do against our values and find they don't match up. It's an uncomfortable feeling, but one that's helpful. The psychological discomfort, something similar to cognitive dissonance, is what motivates meaningful change. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. In fact, in my research I found that shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better. — Brene Brown

Change is all about motion, motion is all about uncertainty and we are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I like to change liquor stores frequently because the clerks got to know your habits if you went in night and day and bought huge quantities. I could feel them wondering why I wasn't dead yet and it made me uncomfortable. They probably weren't thinking any such thing, but then a man gets paranoid when he has 300 hangovers a year. — Charles Bukowski

That 'change makes us uncomfortable' is now one of the most widely promoted, widely accepted, and under-considered half-truths around. [I]t is not change by itself that makes us uncomfortable; it is not even change that involves taking on something very difficult. Rather, it is change that leaves us feeling defenseless before the dangers we 'know' to be present that causes us anxiety. — Robert Kegan

USE EMOTIONS AS INFORMATION. Horses use emotion as information to engage surprisingly agile responses to environmental stimuli and relationship challenges:

(a) Feel the emotion in its purest form
(b) Get the message behind the emotion
(c) Change something in response to the message
(d) Go back to grazing. In other words, let the emotion go, and either get back on task or relax, so you can enjoy life fully. Horses don't hang on to the story, endlessly ruminating over the details of uncomfortable situations

-- from an October 30, 2013 article on the Intelligent Optimist magazine — Linda Kohanov

In these pages, it is my intention to make many people - not only Muslims but also Western apologists for Islam - uncomfortable. I am not going to do this by drawing cartoons. Rather, I intend to challenge centuries of religious orthodoxy with ideas and arguments that I am certain will be denounced as heretical. My argument is for nothing less than a Muslim Reformation. Without fundamental alterations to some of Islam's core concepts, I believe, we shall not solve the burning and increasingly global problem of political violence carried out in the name of religion. I intend to speak freely, in the hope that others will debate equally freely with me on what needs to change in Islamic doctrine, rather than seeking to stifle discussion. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Dont ever be impressed with goal setting; be impressed with goal getting. Reaching new goals and moving to a higher level of performance always requires change, and change feels awkward. But take comfort in the knowledge that if a change doesn't feel uncomfortable, then it's propably not really a change. — John C. Maxwell

Bear, I think having sand in your butt crack must be really uncomfortable. Maybe you should go change your clothes. You don't want to catch sand crabs. What's the point of getting crabs when you weren't having any fun doing it? — T.J. Klune

I've learned that for many people, change is uncomfortable. Maybe they want to go through it, and they can see the benefit of it, but at a gut level, change is uncomfortable. — Mitchell Baker

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to. — Fiona Apple

In supportive work, the therapist cedes great control to the patient. It may seem otherwise. The therapist is setting limits, perhaps implicitly commenting on the patient's behavior or sense of self, and so forth, and on the surface it seems that the therapist is taking responsibility for the patient's progress. but all this activity leads nowhere except, if we succeed, to stability. In supportive therapy, change arises in a more or less miraculous way , through the patient's suddenly feeling secure enough to move in a certain direction, perhaps one unanticipated by the therapist. It is this pathless quality of supportive work - the degree of blind faith it requires of the therapist - that makes it most uncomfortable. — Peter D. Kramer

In retrospect people often seem embarrassed by that time--the late sixties into the seventies--as if suddenly confronted with some lunatic member of your family, once revered, now disgraced. Even John Lennon, who would hold on as much as anybody, would at one point have to declare, "Don't give me no more brother, brother." [...]

But, really, so much was accomplished, so much changed (and even less noticed, a lot held on to), that it seems inappropriate to be quite so uncomfortable with our past. For by refusing to accept the world as we were told to (most pointedly the war in Vietnam) we held on to many of the traditional values we had been taught, not the least of which was to demand accountability from our government. We shouldn't forget that a lot had to change. For America couldn't forever remain the child of the Hula-Hoop with the arsenal of Armageddon. — Ethan A. Russell

Because that's how snobs deal with uncomfortable subjects. We belittle their importance, laugh at them, and change the subject to weather or sport. — L. H. Cosway

Extreme Makeover ... they help people that are uncomfortable in their own skin. They really change lives. — Steven Hill

..:A brand new pair of shoes feels bit tight. We have to constantly use them in order to loose them up and mold them according to our feet.
When we firtst start to take baby steps to greatness, it will feel weird, ackward and funny. It might feel uncomfortable at first but if you stick to it and decipline yourself, with time, you'll not be the same. You'll be a brand new and better person. But you have to stay committed and be decipline. You have to be willing to change, and pay the price. You have got to stay possitive even in the midst of adversiry.
Commit yourself to whatever you decide to do and don't quit. And in no time, you'll be where you want to be and be who you want to be:.. — Rafael Garcia

Bad habits are easy to develop but difficult to live with. Good habits are difficult to develop, but easy to live with. If you are willing to be uncomfortable for little while, so you can press past the initial pain of change, in the long run, your life will be much better. — Joel Osteen

The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices. — Geoff Mulgan

Optimism sprouts from the knowledge that you are in control of your own life, not your past and not those around you. Part of being in control is taking responsibility for how you feel. This means not just admitting to uncomfortable feelings but then examining your circumstances to see what can be done to change these feelings at the source. — Augusten Burroughs

WHILE EACH SPIRITED CHILD IS UNIQUE, most are more intense, persistent, sensitive, perceptive, and uncomfortable with change. Many, but not all, possess four additional "bonus" characteristics: aspects of their personality that can make being their parent even more challenging. — Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change, — Megyn Kelly

We climate researchers can only offer possible scenarios. In other words, things could end up being completely different. But there are undoubtedly parts of the world that will benefit on balance from climate change. Those areas tend to be in the north, where it has been cold and uncomfortable in the past. But it's considered practically heretical to even raise such issues. — Hans Von Storch

But, there was a time when we all had a great thing going but one person just became very uncomfortable with it and he had to try to change it around to suit him more and then it suited no one else but him. — James Young

When we make the unfamiliar familiar,make the unknown known,make the uncomfortable comfortable,and believe the unbelievable,
we can then
expect the unexpected. — Charles F. Glassman

We did I think talk about your feeling of it's fun to be square, and while I'll go along with the Borges-like ramifications, I don't think I was the one who thought it up. In the past my justification for my self-conscious oddness of appearance (by now I figure this is the way I look, and it would not only be more self-conscious but also uncomfortable to change) was that people would think their impression of oddity came simply from the way I looked, and eventually become (hopefully) pleasantly surprised that I was not nearly as much of a nut as I looked, and was really quite ordinary, which is also true I think. It seemed preferable to people thinking 'Well, he looked perfectly ordinary and then it became apparent there was something wrong with his head ... ' Of course now practically everybody to my middle aged way of thinking looks too peculiar for words, and only very infrequently attractive at the same time. — Edward Gorey

I've heard people say that once you're an adult, you don't change. I don't believe that. I think we all have the capacity to change; we just have to want to do it. It's developing the want that is difficult. We become so stuck in our routines, so comfortable, so unwilling to take risk - we just don't see the value in change. Either that or we're just plain uncomfortable with what the change might offer. — Scott Hildreth

Change is uncomfortable, but it's helpful! — Israelmore Ayivor

When the time comes for you to make a change or to grow, the universe will make you so uncomfortable you will eventually have no choice. — Iyanla Vanzant

The deep problem with the system was a kind of moral inertia. So long as it served the narrow self-interests of everyone inside it, no one on the inside would ever seek to change it, no matter how corrupt or sinister it became - though even to use words like "corrupt" and "sinister" made serious people uncomfortable, and so Brad avoided them. — Michael Lewis

I think the most interesting thing about any story is how people change. That's usually a struggle, because change is pretty much an uncomfortable thing. — Toni Collette

We always want to change the channel in our minds because we don't like what's going on. It's uncomfortable. — Geneen Roth

We have to find areas in our lives that we feel most uncomfortable about and want to change. I decided to push myself because it allowed me to give back. I have a scholarship program. When I found out the average age of a homeless person is 9½ years old, I said there must be something that I can do. Now, I am the spokesman for the National Coalition for the Homeless. — Farrah Gray

If the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labour, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make, but while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause — Jim Rohn

I don't feel uncomfortable in America, but every once in a while, I'm reminded that people don't see me the way I see me. It doesn't change my life, but it gives me a consciousness about it. — Chang-rae Lee

My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that's different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses "below" you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.
Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.
Reach your arm out and put it around them.
And then, tell them they're all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.
If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that's where we're gonna be able to do it. That's where we'll start.
Every. Single. Time. — Dan Pearce

Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Transformation is the result of big shifts in perceptions and responses. The process can be uncomfortable, since the mind is reluctant to notice itself, to take responsibility for its stories, and to change. When the mind is in acute resistance, the emotional body pays a price. — Miguel Ruiz

I could never be a politician. But as uncomfortable as I would be doing so, I have no problem with Obama's long-planned 'change of heart.' This dude's made huge, measurable strides for gay rights, and if being coy about his plans for gay marriage for a few years was needed to get him elected, then so be it. LGBT persons will be better off, and federal same-sex marriage recognition will come sooner because of it. — Barack Obama

We change and it's uncomfortable. We flow for a time and then it's awkward. — Frazey Ford

Strangely, the subsequent AIDS works that have become iconic in our culture rarely mention the movement, or the engaged community of lovers, but both formations were inseparable from the crisis itself. Now, looking back, I fear that the story of the isolated helpless homosexual was one far more palatable to the corporations who control the reward system in the arts.The more truthful story of the American mass - abandoning families, criminal governments, indifferent neighbors - is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to recall. The story of how gay people who were despised, had no rights, and carried the burden of a terrible disease came together to force the country to change against its will, is apparently too implicating to tell. Fake tales of individual heterosexuals heroically overcoming their prejudices to rescue helpless dying men with AIDS was a lot more appealing to the powers that be, but not at all true. — Sarah Schulman

I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable. — Michelle Obama

I understand that actors lose their looks, they change over time, but people don't lose their talent. I think that, as people get older and the people who make the decisions get older, they don't like hiring people much older than them because it reminds them of their fathers, and they don't like telling people older than them what to do. It makes them uncomfortable. I think that happens a lot. — Kurt Fuller

How much time, creative energy, and emotion do we expend resisting change because we assume growth must always be painful? Much personal growth is uncomfortable, but it's worse to thwart the ascent of your authenticity. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves. — Ray Bradbury

The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin filling up again. — Anne Lamott

The ego is our pain, but it is what we know and we resist moving out of it. The effort it takes to grow out of painful patterns often feels more uncomfortable than remaining within them. Personal growth can be so painful because it can make us ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But the goal of personal growth is the journey out of dark emotional patterns which cause us pain to those which cause us peace. — Marianne Williamson

We need to start by having a conversation about climate change. It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue just because it's uncomfortable to talk about. — Al Franken

The truth is that all civic and social change is friction. Politics is friction. The only way you can bend the arc of history is to create that kind of friction, which is something that makes most people incredibly uncomfortable but which, for whatever reason, because of my upbringing or because of my genetics, is something that doesn't bug me. — Nick Hanauer

THE FOUR STEPS Step 1: Relabel - Identify your deceptive brain messages and the uncomfortable sensations; call them what they really are. Step 2: Reframe - Change your perception of the importance of the deceptive brain messages; say why these thoughts, urges, and impulses keep bothering you: They are false brain messages (It's not ME, it's just my BRAIN!). Step 3: Refocus - Direct your attention toward an activity or mental process that is wholesome and productive - even while the false and deceptive urges, thoughts, impulses, and sensations are still present and bothering you. Step 4: Revalue - Clearly see the thoughts, urges, and impulses for what they are, simply sensations caused by deceptive brain messages that are not true and that have little to no value (they are something to dismiss, not focus on). — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

If your life is in disarray and you feel uncomfortable and unworthy to pray because you are not clean, don't worry. He already knows about all of that. He is waiting for you to kneel in humility and take the first few steps. Pray for strength. Pray for others to be led to support you and guide you and lift you. Pray that the love of the Savior will pour into your heart. Pray that the miracle of the Atonement will bring forgiveness because you are willing to change. I know that those prayers will be answered, for God loves you. His Son gave his life for you. I know they will help you. — Richard G. Scott

Change is uncomfortable and awkward at first. It has a ripping effect on those who refuse to go along with it. It is not fixed by crying, or worrying, or wallowing in self-pity and mental anguish. — Kcat Yarza

We don't want to be uncomfortable. We want a quick and dirty "how-to" list for happiness. I don't fit that bill. Never have. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to skip over the hard stuff, but it just doesn't work. We don't change, we don't grow, and we don't move forward without the work. If we really want to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way. — Brene Brown

Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you're doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they're hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more. — Seth Godin

Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor and creates a motivational charge that gives us an opportunity to be better. A gem cannot be polished without friction and so neither a person without hardships. Friction within and friction without sharpens our senses and revives our internal resolutions. Friction is uncomfortable, hardships are distressing but both are necessary. We cannot light a match without friction nor can we hone steal. Uncomfortable as it may be, our adversity ultimately lights a fire and sharpens our very will to flourish. Today, let us not be discouraged, let us not be bitter in our suffering rather let us be encouraged as we look to our trials as a medium that will eventually make us better. — Jason Versey

You forget your feet when the shoes are comfortable. You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable. Understanding forgets right and wrong when the mind is comfortable. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. You begin with what is comfortable and never experience what is uncomfortable when you know the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable. — Zhuangzi

Being sick allows you to check out of life. Getting well again means you have to check back in. It is absolutely crucial that you feel ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick. Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start over. — Portia De Rossi

Quick, I told myself. Try to remember what you learned from Jimbo's Self Defence for Young Ladies. Jimbo was a beefy man with prison tats.
"Go into the nearest dark alley," I recalled Jimbo saying. "Freeze like a rabbit or the creature you desire your attacker to mistake you for. If your attacker shouts out to you, respond politely - maybe your optimism will change his mind. If you're about to get into an elevator with a man you feel uncomfortable spending time with in a small, escapeless room, head right in. Remember , fear i an irrational emotion, you should probably ignore it."
Armed with these tips, I hung a right into the nearest dead-end, curled into a ball and started rolling. — The Harvard Lampoon

Change requires leaving our comfort zones and plunging headfirst into uncomfortable situations. It's true this causes some pain and discomfort for a moment, but it's the quickest path to generating long-term fulfillment. — Yehuda Berg

Change is actually what you need to avoid.
Assimilation is much more joyful than conformity,
when you try to change you try to fit yourself to other people's standards.
You deny your own values and opinions, and you adopt a personality that isn't you.
And most likely you will be more uncomfortable even though it may seem like you fit in more, i would suggest you not to change. Just be yourself, the way you are.
Because that's what makes you different and distinguishable and unique from every other individual. — Marilyn Monroe

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. — Marian Wright Edelman

The sad thing is that, even though we know our lives aren't working in certain areas, we are still afraid to change. We are locked into our comfort zone, no matter how self-destructive it may be. Yet, the only way to get out of our comfort zone and to be free of our problems and limitations is to get uncomfortable. — Robert Anthony

Change is uncomfortable. And heading out into unfamiliar terrain is risky. Far too many crave comfort and security. And so they lead a limited existence within the safe confines of their velvety prisons. — Mani S. Sivasubramanian

God's fundamental goal for believers is not to protect us from harm or suffering, to make us comfortable, or to benefit from our service. You can biblically sum up God's primary aim for your whole life in one uncomfortable word: change. Ironic as it may sound, change is the one constant that God purposes for every believer, regardless of circumstances - whether you are in ministry or in a secular job, married or single, healthy or handicapped, chronically ill or terminally diseased. God's immediate and ongoing purpose for every Christian in time and on earth is to change us, to make us like Himself, to conform us to the image of His Son. — Layton Talbert

Technology and the pace of change in media is pushing us into an uncomfortable area The media have perhaps become more cavalier towards pushing confidential information. — Jim Michaels

The killer simply picked any one of the men in gray suits and followed them from office building to cash machine, from lunchtime restaurant back to office building. Those gray suits were not happy, yet showed their unhappiness only during moments of weakness. Punching the buttons of a cash machine that refused to work. Yelling at a taxi that had come too close. Insulting the homeless people who begged for spare change. But the killer also saw the more subtle signs of unhappiness. A slight limp in uncomfortable shoes. Eyes closed, head thrown back while waiting for the traffic signal. The slight hesitation before opening a door. The men in gray suits wanted to escape, but their hatred and anger trapped them. — Sherman Alexie

As sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. But science fiction has not been forgiven for its crap. The reason is that science fiction inherently distrusts the 'eternal verities' on which literature graduates base their doctoral dissertations. Literature departments were uncomfortable with that. But things change. — David Brin

So all you desi boys and girls, dark skin or not, you are beautiful just the way you are. No need to change your skin to be fair and white. And no need to adapt to one's culture to fit in. If you feel uncomfortable to do what other people are doing, then don't do it! — Simi Sunny

I want art to make me think. In order to do that, it may piss me off, or make me uncomfortable. That promotes awareness and change, or at least some discussion. — Pink

Steve's head dropped and stared at his feet. After a weighty, uncomfortable pause, he issued a challenge that would haunt me for days. " Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?"
Sculley felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. There was no response possible other than to acquiesce. " He had a uncanny ability to always get what he wanted, to size up a person and know exactly what to say to reach a person," Sculley recalled. — Walter Isaacson