Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

In the warmth of our comfort zone, life feels safe and familiar. More often than we care to admit, finding the motivation to leave is hard. But the more we’re stuck in our comfort zone, the more opportunities we miss to fully immerse ourselves in the human experience.

Learning how to get out of your comfort zone takes willpower and a change in mindset. Each step you take to expand your comfort zone leads to personal growth, learning, and success.

The comfort zone is a psychological state in which a person feels at ease because they’re not being tested.

Inside the comfort zone, people don’t typically engage in new experiences or take on any challenges. They only participate in activities that are familiar, making them feel “in control” of their environment.

People stay in their comfort zone to avoid feelings of anxiety or stress, and pain. Anything outside the comfort zone creates uncertainty, and uncertainty makes us feel anxious. Naturally, human beings are wired to avoid these feelings. This makes them reluctant to leave their comfort zone.

After all, why should they?

As comfortable as it seems, this safe bubble keeps people from personal growth and doing the things they want but don’t have the courage to do.

For example, staying in an unfulfilling job for years leaves you feeling burnt out and disengaged. Yet, it’s become your comfort zone. You know you’re capable of more, but venturing out and challenging your boundaries scares you because it involves uncertainty.

Finding the motivation to leave your comfort zone isn’t easy.

While there’s nothing wrong with being in your comfort zone if this is where you’re happy, it’s important to be aware of how staying there could hold you back from achieving your goals.

For example, when we try new things we…

Discover more about who we truly are
“The journey toward self-discovery is life’s greatest adventure.”
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Opening yourself up to challenges and understanding how you react to and overcome them, allows you to discover who you truly are. You become more aware of your strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and everything else in between.

Learning more about who you are can help deepen the connection you have with yourself. This enables greater self-love and understanding, as well as possibility, growth, and progress.

Being prepared to step outside your comfort zone can also be the difference between being a leader or a follower.

Learn more about life in general, and gain the confidence to tackle new things
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN

Everything that we know about life, we learn through experiences. So, when we continue to repeat the same experiences, our knowledge levels remain constant and our growth slows or stops.

Generally speaking, the more knowledge and experience we have, the more confident and able we feel. This can give us an increased ability to do things in life we would have never thought possible. This can be incredibly liberating and often comes with significant reward and satisfaction.

Move closer to our goals and create new ones
“Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.”
JIM ROHN

To reach a goal, we usually have to adapt what we’re currently doing – for example, working harder, or developing new skills. This can take courage and determination – two things we rarely find inside our comfort zone.

Sometimes, when we encounter an obstacle on the path to achieving a goal, it can feel easier to retreat back to our comfort zone, rather than tackle the problem head-on. But doing this can mean putting a goal on hold, and might make returning to that goal later feel even more challenging.

Once we put off one goal, it can also be tricky to create new ones, because succeeding at our goals is what provides the confidence to strive for more. In many cases, the more we achieve, the more we hope to achieve, and the more we believe we can achieve. Equally, the more we shy away from our goals, the less capable we feel, and the smaller our world becomes.

Comfort zones are so-called for a reason – they’re comfortable places to be because they involve less risk and provide greater feelings of security and control. On the surface, this might sound ideal, but if you’re looking to grow and reach particular goals, your comfort zone can be an unhelpful place to be.

When you take steps outside of your comfort zone (even small and cautious ones), you’re pushing beyond the limits of what you know, which leads to development.

If you’re ever in doubt about stepping outside of your comfort zone, it can be helpful to start by reflecting on some of your biggest achievements to date. Chances are, the path to get there wasn’t necessarily smooth and required some element of challenge.

Consider how you felt in the moments shortly after these achievements happened. It’s those feelings of joy, pride, and fulfilment that are worth chasing if you want to get the most from life. It’s also those feelings that remind us why fear, and even failure, are all part of the journey…