Uncomfortable Is the Only Way Up
Growth lives where comfort ends
You have 18 waking hours. Every single day. So does the engineer who just got promoted past you. So did I when I was juggling a toddler, a newborn, an EMBA, a full-time job, and a startup. The math is the same. The choices aren't.
Alex Hormozi put it bluntly: "We are the result of our actions, not our aspirations."
I see it all the time. Engineers who want Staff titles but won’t take on the messy projects. Engineers who want leadership but avoid the hard conversations. Engineers who talk about ambition but scroll Instagram for two hours every night.
We are the result of our actions, not our aspirations.
The Year Everything Stacked Up
In 2021, my life looked insane on paper. I had a 2-year-old running around the house. A newborn who didn’t believe in sleep. Classes for my Executive MBA. A full-time engineering leadership role. And a startup I was building on the side, a product called TinyWhale.
People asked me how I managed. Honestly? I didn’t do it alone. My wife held things together when I couldn’t. She picked up the slack, absorbed the chaos, and gave me the room to chase something most people would call crazy. Without her, none of it works.
But even with support, there were sacrifices. I stopped going out. Social events became rare. Family time shrunk to whatever margins I could find. My weekends weren’t weekends, they were just different kinds of workdays.
Was it sustainable? Probably not. Was it necessary? Absolutely.
Two years later, TinyWhale was acquired.
Uncomfortable Is The Job Description
Here’s what I’ve learned: growth never comes from the comfortable path. Not in startups, not in engineering, not in careers.
The work that accelerates your career is almost always the work you’re avoiding.
For engineers, “uncomfortable” doesn’t always mean working 16-hour days. Sometimes it looks like:
Taking ownership of the legacy system nobody wants to touch
Speaking up in a meeting full of senior engineers
Volunteering for the migration everyone else dodged
Giving honest feedback to your manager
Writing publicly when you’re afraid of being judged
Reaching out to someone two levels above you
These are small discomforts. But most engineers won’t do them. They’ll wait to be invited. They’ll wait until they feel ready. They’ll wait until it feels safe.
And they’ll keep waiting.
The Calendar Test
Want to know if you’re on the uncomfortable path? Look at your calendar from the last 30 days.
Not your goals. Not your intentions. Your actual time.
Did you spend time on things that scare you a little? Did you do work that stretched you? Did you make any moves that felt risky?
Or did you optimize for comfort?
Your calendar doesn’t lie. It shows exactly what you prioritize, not what you say you prioritize.
The Cost Is Real
I won’t pretend there’s no tradeoff. There is.
I missed moments with my kids. I skipped dinners. I said no to things I wanted to say yes to. The grind had a cost, and my family paid part of it too.
I’m not telling you to burn yourself out. I’m not glorifying 16-hour days.
But I am telling you this: if you want something beyond average, you have to do things beyond average. There’s no clean path. No life hack. No shortcut.
Just choices.
The Question
So here’s the uncomfortable question: What are you avoiding right now that, if you did it, would actually move your career forward?
You probably already know the answer. You’ve been putting it off because it’s hard, or awkward, or scary.
That’s exactly why you should do it.
The uncomfortable path isn’t a punishment. It’s a filter. It separates the people who want things from the people who are willing to do what it takes to get them.
Which one are you?