Are you working on breaking free from your comfort zone?

We live in a society today where comfort is very much a goal.

We don’t want to be too bold or open in how we speak in case we offend someone and make them feel uncomfortable

We phrase questions in such a way as to preface them with, “I don’t know if you’d be comfortable with this, but…”

We avoid uncomfortable conversations.

I can even start my husband’s car remotely so that it’s already heated up or cooled down by the time we get into it. That way, I’m not too uncomfortable.

If everything is always comfortable in our lives, then–whether we realize it or not–we are constructing for ourselves a glass ceiling that is keeping you from reaching your potential.

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So with this idea of a glass ceiling, I’d like for you to just imagine something: 

Think about the last thing you didn’t do because it scared you. And I don’t mean something that scared you for good reason. If it was in your best interest safety or health wise, that’s called using good judgement, not avoiding getting out of your comfort zone.

But the last time you felt like you really wanted to take advantage of an opportunity, but fear crept in and you didn’t? Maybe you didn’t speak up when you wanted to, or didn’t go for an opportunity because it seemed a little too out of your comfort zone.

How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel empowered or defeated? Or, maybe it made you feel like you were solidifying a bad habit, because that is exactly what we all do when we have that opportunity to do something brave and we choose not to.

Every time we step out of our comfort zone, we are paving the way for it to be a little easier the next time, and a little easier the time after that.

Every time we choose not to step out of our comfort zone, we are doing the opposite. We are getting more and more comfortable avoiding hard things, steering clear of challenges, and playing our lives on the safe side to avoid embarrassment.

All of us have different comfort zones. Some are bigger than others and some are comfortable in areas where others are not. A great definition for a “comfort zone” is from the Cambridge dictionary. It says that a comfort zone is a situation in which you feel comfortable and do not have to do anything new or difficult.

I love that definition. If I stop and think about it, do I really want to go through life without ever doing anything new or difficult? Nope! Not at all. 

Besides, most of us would agree that the difficulties are where we glean the most learned experiences. I think that is partially because when something is so hard for us that we actually don’t do well, our brains connect the dots for us that perhaps that was something unique that we weren’t used to experiencing. Because of that, we take extra notes in the back of our minds about that learning curve for future reference in our memories.

I think that’s why a lot of experts recommend tricking your brain into some sort of familiarity by doing a mindful envisioning before something that you might be anticipating.

But why do we want to get outside of our comfort zones in the first place? 

First, I want to be a leader. I want to lead myself, I want to lead others, and I want to lead a life full of rewarding challenges and growth. From that perspective, we want to cultivate character traits like determination, belief, confidence, bravery, and the like. A lot of those require getting out of our comfort zone. 

Along similar lines is a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’”

You gain a better character, more strength, resilience every time you intentionally take a step to do that thing that might scare you a bit. That way, the next time there’s an opportunity to do something of equal or greater nervousness value, you can conquer that too! 

RELATED: Leading Through Insecurities

And why do we want that? Why do we want a bigger capacity to take on new things? Why do we want fewer and fewer things that have the power over us to cause us to be nervous or get totally thrown out of whack?

1. Life preparation: To prepare for the unexpected obstacles life will throw our way! 
2. Servant leader: So that we can better develop ourselves into a servant leader, meaning someone that can carry enough of a load to occasionally pick up and “carry” burdens that belong to other people but are too heavy for them to carry on their own.
3. Self improvement: Stephen Covey says, “Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.”
4. Train our brains: Our brains don’t like the idea of not knowing exactly what to expect, but we can train our brains to be a little more chill in the face of unexpected events and stressful situations.

Do one small thing today that isn’t convenient to encourage your mind to expand beyond your current comfort zone, and if you take enough baby steps in that direction, you won’t believe how far you’ll be able to go after some consistent effort! 

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