The Case for Intentional Challenge: Why Comfort Alone Isn't Enough
I'm writing this from my home office, where I can order any meal with a tap on my phone. I can stream any film ever made, and maintain my entire social life through a device in my pocket. My workday involves typing on a laptop while working from my comfortable home office. When I want exercise, I drive two miles to an air-conditioned gym with precisely calibrated weights.
This isn't a complaint about the progress we have made as a society. We've solved problems that plagued humanity for millennia. We've eliminated most physical hardship, uncertainty, and discomfort from daily life.
But by doing so, it feels like something is missing. Whether it's our connection to the land and our environment or maybe even more importantly, to ourselves and what we are truly capable of.
The Comfort Paradox
My parents, born in the 1960s, witnessed the personal computer revolutionise society. If I describe my typical day to them, working remotely, exercising on machines that track my heart rate, they're genuinely baffled by how removed it all seems from the physical world. My dad works in construction. For him, work means "work". Physically moving materials, building something tangible. I can spend all day writing proposals or in meetings that advance my business goals and consider that productive work. To him, that seems alien.
Maybe he's onto something. Despite unprecedented comfort and convenience, mental health statistics paint a troubling picture. Rates of adolescent depression increased from 8.1% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2019. By 2021, 42% of American adults reported recent symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder. We have everything our ancestors could have dreamed of, yet something fundamental feels absent.
The issue isn't that comfort is bad. It's that comfort alone isn't sufficient for human flourishing.
What We're Missing: Adaptive Stress
Modern psychology recognises something called "hormesis". This is the principle that small amounts of stress strengthen biological systems. Recent research by Oshri and colleagues (2022) found that "low-to-moderate levels of stress are associated with increased resilience, better cognitive functioning, and a lower risk of psychopathology." Your muscles grow stronger when challenged by resistance. Your immune system develops resilience through controlled exposure to pathogens. Your mind sharpens when pushed beyond its comfort zone.
Studies have shown that "small stresses build resilience to large stresses" through measurable neurological and physiological adaptations. The key is the controlled nature of the exposure, what researchers call "hormetic training."
Our ancestors didn't need to seek out challenges, as it found them daily through hunting, farming, weather, and survival demands.
From 2020-2022 I worked in Kenya. We spent much of our time in Nanyuki, in the foothills of Africas second biggest mountain, Mount Kenya. One day I asked one of my Kenyan colleagues if he had ever climber Mount Kenya. He laughed at me. “This is something mzungu’s (white person/foreigner in Swahili) do.” He went on to describe that when he wasn’t working with me, he had animals to look after and feed on his small patch of land. He had children to support and a wife that would be unsympathetic if he was to go off and choose to walk up a 5199m mountian.
For him, work and life was already challenging. He didn’t need to introduce extra risk and stress into his life. For us westerners, our lives have become so sterile, that we have created arbitery challenges to push ourselves.
Mount Kenya overlooking Nanyuki, where I spent 3 years working in 2020-2022.
These stressors, while difficult, served an important function: they built physical and psychological resilience.
Today's challenge scarcity creates what researchers call "psychological fragility." Without regular exposure to manageable difficulties, we become less equipped to handle life's inevitable hardships, job loss, relationship struggles, health scares, or family crises.
The Military Model
During my infantry training, we had a principle: "Train hard, fight easy." We couldn't simply show up on deployment and hope to perform under pressure. Instead, we deliberately created conditions more difficult than what we'd face in actual operations.
This wasn't about glorifying suffering, it was about building adaptive capacity. When real challenges arose, we had a reference point. We'd been uncomfortable before, pushed past perceived limits, and discovered we could handle more than we initially believed possible.
This model applies beyond military contexts. Research on resilience shows that people who've successfully navigated voluntary challenges whether athletic, creative, or intellectual demonstrate better coping mechanisms when facing involuntary hardships. What Nassim Taleb calls "antifragility", the ability to not just withstand stress but grow stronger from it emerges through this process of controlled exposure to difficulty.
Historically, most societies understood this principle intuitively. Ancient Spartan training, Native American vision quests, Aboriginal walkabouts, and countless other cultures incorporated deliberate challenges into their coming-of-age rituals. These weren't arbitrary traditions, they served the crucial function of building resilience before young people faced adult responsibilities. Modern society has largely abandoned these structured challenges, leaving many people without the psychological tools their ancestors took for granted.
What Intentional Challenge Looks Like
I'm not advocating for manufactured drama or unnecessary pain. Instead, I'm suggesting structured challenges that build specific capacities:
Physical Resilience
Cold exposure protocols (ice baths, cold showers)
Endurance challenges that push cardiovascular limits
Strength training that requires progressive overload
Multi-day hiking or camping without modern conveniences
Mental Resilience
Learning difficult skills (musical instruments, complex languages)
Meditation retreats or extended periods of digital silence
Public speaking or performance challenges
Creative projects with high failure rates
Emotional Resilience
Volunteer work with difficult populations
Having challenging conversations you've been avoiding
Taking on leadership roles with real consequences
Engaging with people who hold opposing viewpoints
The key is choosing challenges that are:
Voluntary: You maintain control over the experience
Progressive: Difficulty increases gradually over time
Bounded: Clear beginning and end points
Meaningful: Connected to values you actually care about
This framework aligns with Carol Dweck's research on "growth mindset", the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. People who embrace challenges rather than avoid them develop greater resilience and higher performance over time.
Addressing the Obvious Questions
"I already face plenty of stress at work/home/life." Chronic, low-level stress (deadlines, traffic, relationship tension) is different from acute, chosen challenges. The first depletes resilience; the second builds it. One key difference is control. Voluntary challenges let you practice handling difficulty on your terms.
"This sounds like privileged advice." Fair point. Many people face daily survival challenges and don't need additional hardship. This framework primarily applies to those with sufficient stability to choose their difficulties. However, even in constrained circumstances, small voluntary challenges can provide a sense of agency and growth.
"What if I fail or get hurt?" That's partly the point. Learning to navigate failure and discomfort in controlled settings prepares you for when they're imposed by circumstances beyond your control. Choose challenges with acceptable risk levels, but don't eliminate risk entirely.
How to Start: The Progressive Challenge Framework
The annual challenge framework might feel overwhelming if you're not used to voluntary discomfort. Like any adaptation, building challenge tolerance requires progressive overload. Starting small and gradually increasing difficulty.
Monthly Micro-Challenges for Beginners
Start with manageable challenges that require minimal time and resources but still push you outside your comfort zone:
Physical Micro-Challenges:
Take cold showers for 30 seconds daily for a month
Walk or bike instead of driving for trips under 2 miles
Do 10 pushups every morning before coffee
Mental Micro-Challenges:
Read one challenging book per month (philosophy, science, history)
Learn 50 words in a new language using apps
Write 500 words daily for 30 days
Meditate for 10 minutes daily
Social/Emotional Micro-Challenges:
Have one difficult conversation you've been avoiding
Attend a social event where you know nobody
Give one genuine compliment to a stranger each day
Say "no" to one request that doesn't align with your values
The 3-Stage Progression Framework
Stage 1: Comfort Zone Expansion (Months 1-3)
Focus on micro-challenges that feel slightly uncomfortable but manageable. The goal is building the habit of choosing difficulty rather than achieving any particular outcome. Success looks like consistency, not intensity.
Stage 2: Skill Building (Months 4-9)
Combine multiple micro-challenges or increase their difficulty. Start learning skills that require sustained effort, musical instruments, physical fitness goals, creative projects. Begin planning your annual challenge.
Stage 3: Significant Challenge (Months 10-12)
Undertake your annual challenge while maintaining the foundation of smaller daily/weekly practices. This stage integrates everything you've learned about managing discomfort.
Calibrating Challenge Intensity: Warning Signs
You're Pushing Too Hard If:
You're consistently anxious or unable to sleep
Physical challenges are causing injury rather than adaptation
You're neglecting relationships or responsibilities
The challenge becomes an obsession rather than a tool
You feel shame or self-punishment rather than growth
You're Not Pushing Hard Enough If:
The challenge feels completely comfortable within a week
You never question whether you can complete it
There's no moment where you want to quit but choose to continue
You're not learning anything new about your capabilities
Others would describe the challenge as "easy" for your skill level
The Sweet Spot Indicators:
You feel nervous but excited at the beginning
There are moments of genuine doubt during the process
You surprise yourself with what you can handle
The challenge requires consistent effort but doesn't dominate your life
You feel genuinely proud upon completion, not just relieved
The Annual Challenge Framework
Once you've built comfort with smaller challenges, commit to one significant voluntary challenge each year. Something that requires months of preparation, pushes you beyond current capabilities, and has a real possibility of failure.
Examples might include:
Training for and completing a difficult athletic event
Learning a skill well enough to perform publicly
Taking on a leadership role in your community
Creating something meaningful despite risk of criticism
Traveling somewhere that pushes your comfort boundaries
The specific challenge matters less than the commitment to systematic discomfort in service of growth. By this point, you'll have developed the self-awareness to calibrate difficulty appropriately and the resilience to handle setbacks.
Why This Matters
We need both security and challenge, comfort and growth, safety and risk. The problem isn't that we've eliminated hardship; it's that we've eliminated our choice in facing it.
When difficulty inevitably arrives, and it will, we want to meet it with strength built through practice, not fragility maintained through avoidance.
The goal isn't to suffer for its own sake. It's to build the capacity to handle whatever comes next with resilience, confidence, and grace.
What challenge will you choose this year?
