We’ve all been there. Many are there right now as they read this blog entry. Perhaps you’re in your favorite cafe with a nice hot cup of coffee in front of you. Or maybe you’re at home passing the time watching videos about things you’ll never do with people you’ll never meet. Of course, there’s always something more productive that you could be doing. But this is your free-time… The time that is supposed to define you and yet always seems to find you with no clear point or purpose. You are in “the comfort zone”.
Despite what it suggests, the term “comfort zone” is neither a special feeling nor any particular place. The comfort zone is the state of thinking, being and doing as you have always thought, been and done before. It is the sense of security we have about things that are familiar to us. It is also the result of avoiding what is not familiar to us. And in this way, the comfort zone is quite possibly one of the greatest hindrances to personal progress.
Still haven’t written that novel you were meaning to write? Still haven’t mastered that language or musical instrument you resolved to study in earnest last New Year? Still haven’t improved or increased your circle of friends or network of business connections? Whatever it is that you still haven’t done, it’s probably because you somehow imagined that you could do it from within your own comfort zone.
Later, upon realizing that the endeavor would take you outside of your comfort zone, you may then have told yourself that you have lost motivation or that someone like you needs to do it in some special other way or at some other time… Or even just not at all.
But the problem is simple: To maintain our comfort zones, we unwittingly build barriers around ourselves that prohibit us from growing beyond them. No matter what excuses we make, the thing we need to do to make progress will often be the very last thing we are willing to do. It’s like wanting to swim but refusing to get into water.
But the comfort zone exists for us all and it serves us every bit as much as it holds us back. It creates a safe space where we can learn and – however improbably- build the confidence to one day go beyond it.
The comfort zone may not be destroyed but it may yet be expanded by every choice we make to go outside of it. It hardly matters if it is in some large and impactful or small and inconsequential way, every choice we make to go outside of our comfort zone in one way serves to include more within our comfort zone and increases the likelihood that we will make similar choices to go outside the comfort zone in another way in the future.
Don’t like meeting new people or talking to strangers? Try dancing on a not so crowded dance floor, instead. Afraid of public speaking? How about performing at a karaoke bar! Have the persistent habit of thinking the same negative thoughts? Maybe walk down streets you’ve never taken on your way home from work.
We all know that the comfort zone may continue to cause us to miss countless opportunities to make progress in life. But that is all the more reason to take full advantage of any opportunity to go outside the comfort zone whenever, wherever and however we can.
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