How to Live Outside Your Comfort Zone

As you mature into adulthood, find your footing in a career path and start to settle into the core activities associated with work and family life, there is a level of familiarity that comes with your routines.  You like to follow the predictable path because you like to know what to expect, it helps bring a sense of order to a chaotic world.  In doing so, you will find yourself gravitating to a comfortable life that mirrors what you believe society expects of you.  The problem with this?  This may be enough for some, but unlikely you if you are reading this.

The majority of society is filled with people living unfulfilled lives that have for whatever reason, seemingly sold their true dreams down the river a long time ago.  You can’t expect to follow the same path and get different results.  You’ll know you’re slipping into that quicksand of comfort when what you value as “consistency” actually morphs into “complacency,” and the lines start to feel blurred between the two. 

-Consistency is sticking to similar patterns of behavior (routine), but complacency is the belief that you do not need to do anything more to improve the situation you are in.  It is living with the mindset that what you have is “good enough,” and not having a compelling reason to seek to improve your current circumstances. – 

If your cup is always just full enough to get by, it’s going to take intrinsic motivation to change course.  If you can’t summon that motivation, a key side effect will be inertia, the tendency to remain unchanged from your existing state.  No change equals no growth, and following this path essentially robs you of the opportunity to set the bar higher for yourself, to strive for a richer and more exciting life.  So what can you do?

Choose to embrace where change takes you, because beyond your comfort zone is where the major growth occurs.  It requires you to broaden your horizons, seek out new challenges, and wade into unfamiliar territory.  

Taking the leap outside of your pre-conditioned limitations is a powerful act for your psyche, because it forces your thoughts to align to your actions.  Beliefs usually precede action, but in this instance you can use action to construct your belief.  

This is how you reconfigure your thinking from “What happens if I fail?” to “What happens if I succeed?”  This is the difference between “Here are all the reasons I shouldn’t try…” to “What is the worst that can happen, and is that even all that bad?”  

As you gradually step outside the familiar walls you’ve built for yourself, you’ll begin to see yourself in a new light.  You’ll begin to reframe yourself as someone not only capable of pushing your own limits, but someone who actively seeks chances to do so because they know what type of outsize influence that can have on your future.  You will tap into a new source of confidence and strength that will continue to propel you forward, and pretty soon after your redefined boundaries will make the former you unrecognizable.  

Before long your identity will have changed into something that may even be unrecognizable to you, but likely for the better.  So get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Remember that discomfort is a leading indicator of positive change and the more you seek it out, the more you put yourself in a position to thrive in the long run.