Friday, February 21, 2014

Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone



Being the naturally lazy creatures that we are -- always doing our best to make life more pleasurable (or rather, what we believe would make our lives more pleasurable) -- we prefer staying within our comfort zones. Leaving our comfort zone is unpleasant and comfort is easy to achieve most times. We all fear uncertainty, loss, pain, and so we seek to cushion ourselves against the rawness of life by spending our lives in artificial, climate- controlled boxes safe from unwanted intrusion.

Powerful forces conspire to keep you in your comfort zones, penned by fear. The system wants you to be compliant, following the rules of the group, be an acceptor rather than a creator. Fear of social judgment discourages you from trying anything with a risk of rejection or failure.

Unfortunately changing our habits is not easy -- for one simple reason: it's uncomfortable. No matter what your habits -- healthy, unhealthy, productive, destructive -- going against them will be uncomfortable. Most people don't give discomfort the credit it is due because most of us , if only subconsciously, do our best to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

The problem is that if you never feel discomfort then you clearly never leave your comfort zone. if you don't leave your comfort zone then you will never form the habits that you need to form in order to succeed. That's what it all comes down to: forming habits that will nurture and support your success. In order to change your life you must form new habits -- habits in all aspects of your life moving your comfort zone to new, unknown territory.

Think back to the most meaningful, amazing moments of your life. When you examine them you will find that they had you stepping out of your comfort zone. Trying something new and unfamiliar brings extra excitement and emotion to an event. These highs leave us with a greater sense of accomplishment and fulfillment than simply doing the same thing every day.

Ideas, concepts or goals alone are not enough to motivate us. They are ideas -- not living things that move and can affect. We can try to find outside sources of motivation, but unless you can hire a personal trainer and life coach to sit down with you every week, then you're basically on your own. But this is not something that should scare you.

You can become your greatest motivator, all that you need to do is talk to yourself. Yes, I know it sounds silly. And yes, if you talk to yourself out loud in public, then people may very well think that you are insane. But thankfully you can have full conversations with yourself inside your head. Most people underestimate the strength and importance of talking to oneself. Not only will talking to yourself keep you sane -- literally -- it also works as the greatest motivational system the world has ever seen.

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." ~ Neale Donald Walsch

No comments:

Post a Comment