Do you ask yourself...
“What’s stopping me from doing something new?”
“What’s stopping me from taking that leap into the unknown?
“Why am I not applying for that new job I want?”
One reason could be you are stuck in your comfort zone. This may prevent you from reaching goals, applying for a new job, seeking new opportunities or just going out there and doing more of the things you want to do.
What is the comfort zone?
An individual’s comfort zone is a behavioural state where you can operate in an anxiety-neutral way and participate in limited behaviours that feel comfortable.
If you’re in your comfort zone, you’re in a place where things aren’t going to bother you. You’re not going to feel anxious because you’re not doing anything that will cause your threat system to be triggered.
However, the comfort zone is where we can all get trapped, preventing us from experiencing new things. So we keep doing the same thing, playing it safe, and as a result, change or personal growth does not happen.
Getting in the driving seat.
An example of moving out of our comfort zone is learning to drive. Most of us will have learnt this skill at some point. If we waited until we felt confident, we would never get into a car. So firstly, you must get into this metal container vehicle and start moving along the road.
Then, having passed your test, the next step that you have to take is to get into the car and drive on your own without the instructor there, without support. That is definitely outside of your comfort zone.
WHAT PREVENTS US FROM MOVING OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE?
Fear of doing something new.
If you feel fear when entering a new situation, anxiety’s job is to get you to avoid it.
Fear will trigger your threat system; therefore, anxiety wants you not to do that. So it’s telling you don’t go out to that social engagement or networking event. Do you wonder, “what if somebody is talking about me? What if I say something stupid? What if I don’t know what I’m doing?”
It’s easier just not to go; we can tell ourselves stories about why we’re not doing things or trying something new. The stories we tell ourselves reduce the conflict we are experiencing. We want to feel comfortable with our decision, so we say, ‘Oh, well, I’m too tired to go to that party or that social engagement or networking event so I won’t go. I need this day, this time for myself; self-care is what I need. So instead, I’d rather sit and watch Netflix with a glass of wine.
We may begin to feel calm and think, “I’m looking after myself by not going out”, but we are allowing ourselves to stay within our comfort zone. We don’t learn that though we felt nervous, the world didn’t end; we managed to cope quite well. We improve in increments if we reflect on the driving example or any other skills we learnt.
Our Mindset.
We need to prepare to fail because life isn’t always about achieving. You’re not always going to be successful in every activity you go into, but there are different ways that you can look at things.
You can see it as either a failure (negative mindset) or that you didn’t succeed in something at that time (positive mindset). It’s not a catastrophic event. If you look at it as a failure, beat yourself up, and think awful things about yourself like: “Oh, that must mean I’m just terrible. I’m no good, I’m useless,” you will have a pretty dim view of yourself. However, you can engage in the other, more compassionate way of thinking about things, asking yourself, “what did I do right? I did this part right, and that part was not so well. Okay, It didn’t quite work out as I wanted. I didn’t get the promotion, but maybe it was because there were people with more experience than me”. Maybe you need to improve your skillset or the way you approach the task.
Learning to move out of our comfort zone.
Continuous learning is something we do without thinking about it. For example, if you get a stain on the carpet, you might use a particular product, but it didn’t remove it. So you look on the internet and find a way to remove that stain. You learned that the first strategy didn’t work, but you can improve the outcome.
We can use the principle of continuous learning to help us learn from our mistakes. Ask yourself questions after you have made a mistake or failed at something, such as,
what mistakes did I make,
how could I have done it better,
what do I think I can learn from this?
You are improving your skills by consciously engaging in this type of thinking. You’re using each event as a learning opportunity which will influence your mindset. You’re not going to feel full of dread and horror about yourself and avoid the things you know would’ve led up to it. Instead, you can see the mistake and how you can be more effective.
Face our Fears Head On
If we face our mistakes and fears head-on and move out of our comfort zone, we will gain self-confidence. Let’s face it; when we think about how others feel about us, we’re not thinking, ” Oh, well, they must think I’m wonderful, ” or ” I’m nice. Instead, we tend to feel very negative things, such as they think I’m useless, they think I don’t deserve to be here, and they didn’t earn the promotion. However, we don’t necessarily have evidence that what others think about us is accurate. A more compassionate approach allows us to develop new skills and change our mindset to a more positive one. We stop doing what we have always done. When we’re not operating on automatic pilot anymore, we start to move out of our comfort zone and welcome new experiences; it feels lovely.
Moving out of your comfort zone
If you stay in your comfort zone, change and growth will not happen. You need to challenge yourself and start to move out toe by toe, increment by increment. The more you challenge yourself, the more you will learn that although you felt anxious, the world didn’t end, and nothing awful happened to you.
Start to think about how you can start moving out of your comfort zone. For example, do something for yourself, something which you have been putting off, that you didn’t want to do because fear stopped you. But, on the other hand, it could be a new experience, like rock climbing or bike riding, that pushes you just outside your comfort zone.
You don’t want to choose something terrifying that you probably couldn’t do, such as climbing Everest when you’ve never even climbed a rock. But on the other hand, you can just about manage something that raises your anxiety slightly, but not so much that fear blocks you.
I’d love to see you at my next Facebook Live.
You can watch my replays and keep up to date by visiting my website,
Check out my youtube channel, which contains videos about anxiety and assertiveness.
More free resources are coming soon.
Thanks for now. Bye!
Kim
