If there was a common theme to my early career, it was a sense of discomfort from feeling constantly under pressure to rise to a new challenge. As I reach the quarter century mark in my career, I’ve grown to appreciate and enjoy a sense of discomfort. Today, when I have blue days, it is usually from a lack of discomfort and pressure.

I’ve always had an insatiable appetite for new challenges. Sometimes I’d bite off more than I could chew. Notably, one moment of crisis in my mid 20’s resulted in alopecia, insomnia and sobbing on my boss’s shoulder. But overall, my thirst for new challenges and a growing comfort with discomfort helped me to build my career. Even the moment of crisis resulted in accelerated learning. It taught me the importance of knowing your own limits, not just for your own wellbeing but for those that depend on you.

Exit your comfort zone

There is no denying that if you seek accelerated personal growth, you need to be regularly stretched outside of your comfort zone. There is no easy path or cheat code for personal growth. Yes, someone might have connections that open more doors to opportunity, but actual personal development only comes with doing the work and overcoming the challenges yourself.

Accelerated growth isn’t for everyone. It can feel like an intense and jolting rollercoaster ride. We all need to discover the speed of growth and discomfort that we are comfortable with. Rollercoaster rides aren’t for everyone and that is totally fine, if we appreciate that your speed of career advancement and your speed of growth are interdependent.

Accelerated learning and discomfort

But for the thrill seekers out there, how do you access that accelerated learning? For me, it came from joining an entrepreneurial start-up agency led by the most ambitious, hardworking and demanding boss I’ve ever come across. My boss was as tough as they come but very egalitarian in how they spotted and rewarded ambition and talent. It was anything other than an easy ride.

I was prompted to reflect on my professional journey after my father-in-law shared a personal story of how he started out in his career. His first job was working in a large hydroelectric plant in New Zealand’s South Island as an electrical engineer. A few weeks into the job he asked his boss if he could work the nightshift. They asked: “Are you mad, why do you want to work those unsociable hours?”

He’d identified that the power plant ran a skeleton crew at night. He believed this would mean he would get to work on far more challenging projects than during the day. This would accelerate his learning much faster than his peers working on the day shift. And so, it turned out to be true. Nightshifts aren’t very common in the PR industry, but there are environments that offer more fertile ground for rapid learning.

It would be remiss not to mention work life balance. Although I have always worked hard, I’ve also been very protective of my time outside of work. Peaks aside, hard and challenging work doesn’t mean working longer hours. It’s the character of the work you do, not the volume of it, that matters.