An interesting book popped up on my radar recently, and, as if I didn’t have enough books waiting to be read, I ordered it.

“The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self” is written by former Men’s Health writer Michael Easter. Easter also has a weekly newsletter on improving health through “modern science and evolutionary wisdom.” I’m a health and wellness geek, so the book’s premise appealed to me.

The book explores the comforts of our modern lives and how they can be detrimental to our health – think about convenience foods, sitting while binge-watching one of a zillion television channels or mindlessly scrolling through that convenient little computer in the palm of our hand. Easter writes that while modern life is comfortable, it’s not making us happy. In the book, he eschews his overly digitized modern life to embark on a journey that finds him camping in Alaska for a month learning to live in survival mode.

With each page turn, I began to think of how being comfortable in our professional lives can also be stifling. Do you think it would benefit an organization to have leadership that stayed comfortable with the status of their business? If IPS leaders were rooted in the comfort of employees working in the office eight hours a day, five days a week, they would not have implemented alternative work arrangements.

I, like many people, do not particularly like change. I crave a safe and comfortable routine. However, when I think about my chosen profession, I would have jumped careers quickly if I’d clung to comfort over the discomfort of change! My career has taken me from hard-copy newsprint to websites and social media to a podcast. I embraced the discomfort of change and continued to learn new skills as the communications field evolved. Out of the lessons Easter learned during his time in the woods, here are three that stuck out to me:

1. Create your rites of passage to toughen up your body and mind.
2. Combat loneliness by staying alone in nature for a while.
3. Life is better when you don’t depend on things for your happiness, but live simply instead.

I’m not suggesting to go Easter’s route, giving up all creature comforts for the wilds of our 49th state. However, stepping out of our comfort zones can benefit all of us both personally and professionally.