> Instructing students to seek discomfort increased their persistence and risk-taking in the exercise – they made more progress and learned more > We reasoned

> Instructing students to seek discomfort increased their persistence and risk-taking in the exercise – they made more progress and learned more > We reasoned that seeking discomfort changes the meaning of discomfort to a signal of growth, which is motivating (...) people should seek the discomfort inherent in growth as a sign of progress instead of avoiding it. Growing is often uncomfortable; we found that embracing discomfort can be motivating. So, it's not that "seeking discomfort" that gave the personal growth. Being comforted, assured that you will feel discomfort while improving yourself and that's ok is what increased the persistance during the challanges.