“To be successful, you have to get out of your Comfort Zone”
What! Are you kidding me? I love my comfort zone. It’s where I make things happen!
The above quote is one of our modern-day colloquialisms. Created and disseminated by the Herd.
My comfort zone is where I feel and perform my best. After starting and running my business for over 35 years, I’m constantly being pushed into areas that I’m not comfortable with. That little voice keeps playing in my head, “Get out of your comfort zone, dude!” There was a time when I would give it a try, fall flat on my face, and then race back to my comfort zone. My comfort zone is where I get to use my talents, where I am good.
I did a little light Googling the other day and came across an interesting article from Harvard Business School. Below, I’ve shared a few points from the article, then added my own experiences in blue to show why getting out of your comfort zone may not be such a good idea.
The Benefits of Leaving Your Comfort Zone – Harvard Business
As you train for your 5k, you can see how speeding up your walking pace and pushing yourself to jog – getting outside your comfort zone – can help you develop the fitness, stamina, and mental fortitude to run your race. Except when you go from walking to jogging, tear your MCL, end up having surgery, and spend 8 weeks in PT before you can even walk comfortably again. Maybe I should have stuck with walking. Many doctors agree that walking is better for you anyway.
Achieving your goals: Not everything you want to achieve in life will be easy. By moving beyond your comfort zone into the growth zone, you’ll be able to do just that: grow. If achieving your goals is hard, maybe you should reconsider your goals and keep reading below.
Boosting your self-confidence. Accomplishment brings self-confidence, especially if you worked hard, challenged yourself, and saw it through. And the boost in self-confidence you get after achieving one goal can push you to achieve more. You will accomplish more and gain greater self-confidence if you do what you love and live to do! You can still push yourself in your comfort zone.
Building your resilience. Challenging yourself to move outside your comfort zone can increase your resilience as well. You’ll gain more confidence in how you handle failure or setbacks (when you are in your comfort zone, there is no failure, just learning lessons) and become more comfortable with increased levels of stress, anxiety (these are not good things and they are usually considered things we need to eliminate or reduce), and uncertainty. Remember this about stress: it is all self-inflicted.
Giving you self-agency: Finally, by stepping outside your comfort zone often, you’ll learn more about yourself and gain more control over how you want your life to look and what you want to do with it. BINGO!!! Start here, and you will never have to leave your comfort zone!
Stop starting at the end and start with the beginning!
Discovering you in your Comfort Zone!
If you start with what the Harvard Business study ended with, you will discover that you never need to leave your “Comfort Zone.”
What do you want your life to look like? Have you ever asked yourself this question, and, better yet, have you ever answered it? In our book Don’t Be A Cow, it is Day 10: “What do you Want?
It seems like such an easy question, right? I mean, isn’t it what you get out of bed for every day? If you can’t truthfully answer that question, may I suggest the following:
What do I Want?
Find a Comfy spot where you can spend some time alone
Get in some comfy clothes
Grab some comfort food & beverage
And please grab a pen/pencil and paper
It may help to think of the things you enjoy doing and the things you are good at. I’ve found that I generally like doing things that I’m good at.
I’ve always found it amusing how people struggle with this, including my own wife and coauthor. I had one lady who got so frustrated that she just quit reading the book. LOL! This is not an exercise in frustration but in freedom. Have fun with it. I sometimes hear people talking about what they would do if they won the lottery. That’s how you need to view this exercise.
Caution: I have also found that sometimes I am really doing what I want; I just didn’t realize it. It’s kinda eye-opening but can also be invigorating.
Ignore the Herd! Learn to Thrive in Your Comfort Zone!
Live Happy: Live Well
You are a Beautiful Person