Everyone has heard the expression “Get out of your comfort zone!” or heard someone say “That experience took me way out of my comfort zone.”
Your comfort zone is where you live 90% of your life or more. You know how to get to work or wherever you have to go, you know how to pay the rent on time and pick out clothes to wear in the morning and so on. You know how to drive or take the bus or train. Normal life is not easy but you’re well acquainted with almost every activity normal life requires of you, reports Forbes.
When you step out of your comfort zone you go into the unknown, which is a scary place. Nobody wants to feel exposed or to be embarrassed by making a misstep in a new setting. Yet stepping of your comfort zone helps you in three powerful ways.
For starters, when you do something new you experience the twinge in your gut that says “Yikes, I hope I don’t fail at this, or I’ll feel like an idiot” and that is a very good feeling to get used to. The more you feel it, the less uncomfortable that twinge will become. This is how your muscles grow!
It’s only by doing something new that we can learn and grow. We don’t learn anything when you follow our established routine one more time. When we recite from the same old scripts we’ve always followed, at work and everywhere else, we aren’t really living our lives. We’re just going through the motions.
When you step out of your standard script and your established routine, you feel the twinge of fear and realize that it won’t kill you. Then you get a second powerful bonus. You get the expanded territory that you just claimed for your newly enlarged comfort zone. Your comfort zone gets bigger every time you step outside the fence that gives you a mild electrical charge whenever you cross it.
By stepping over the fence again and again, you get used to the electrical charge and it bothers you less and less. Plus, your comfort zone is getting bigger!
The third benefit of expanding your comfort zone by trying new things, saying new things and generally stepping into your power is that you will feel better and better every time you do it.
You’ll feel more confident. That confidence will spur you to push on the boundary of your comfort zone again. Reinvention is a self-reinforcing system!
When people say “I’m going through personal growth,” this expansion of comfort-zone territory and muscle-building is what they’re referring to!
How can you take a step out of your comfort zone right now? Here are 10 ideas.
Ten Ways to Expand Your Comfort Zone
1. Get a journal and start writing in it. Write about the boundaries of your present comfort zone. Which activities and conversations make you feel comfortable and self-assured, and which ones feel a bit risky or intimidating? Some people, for instance, are comfortable meeting new people in groups but would never meet a stranger (say a friend of a friend) for a networking coffee and have to maintain conversation for an hour. That is their comfort-zone boundary, and that’s fine. Everybody has a boundary. Think about and write about your comfort-zone boundaries and pay close attention to the perimeter of your comfort zone. How could you take a tiny step outside your comfort zone now?
2. If you used to paint, dance, sculpt, weave play a musical instrument or follow a different creative pursuit in the past — even in high school or before — take a step back into that activity now. Take a dance class or a pottery class. If you lost your clarinet along the way, buy one on eBay. Tap into your creative side. Nothing grows your mojo faster than that!
3. Change up details of your daily life just to get used to making changes. Try a different menu of dishes when you cook at home and change your standard order when you eat out. Change the arrangement of your furniture and change your route to work. Shake your mind out of any ruts it’s fallen into.
4. Join a group that meets at the library or community center or wherever people meet in your town. Get together with people to talk about books or sports or films or your favorite breed of dog. You can find Meetup groups on tons of topics, too. Meeting new people is a confidence-booster and gives you new perspectives that will keep your power surge going!
5. Change your look. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You can update your clothes shopping at thrift shops.
6. Make a list of things you’d say to people around you if you felt more confident. (If you write your list, write it in code or hide it in a safe place if you don’t want to share your thoughts.) Practice what you would say if the right time to speak your truth should arrive, and it very well may. Practice being compassionate as you share what’s on your mind. When the moment comes, speak up. Your muscles will grow the minute you open your mouth.
