There is a popular adage that you have to step outside your comfort zone to achieve great things. We see in the popular works of literature, podcasts and movies. Many famous people proclaim that it was stepping outside of the comfort zone that helped them become who they are. You have been most likely curious too, what this is all about. I have personally been outside my comfort zone many times over the years and have learned the great benefits that the experience brings. Let’s start figuring out where we start before we learn how to go where we want.
What makes a comfort zone so special and what are its drawbacks?
The comfort zone is not called “comfort” for nothing. It is where we feel the most comfort (duh). It is where the world feels predictable and known. It is where we don’t have anxieties about what might be lurking around the corner. This comfort allows us to sleep soundly at night and not to wake up gasping for air with every sound. All of the sounds have been learned by now and the worry level is low. We speak the comfort language with the people we know and stay within the boundaries of socially accepted behavior. This comfort helps us predict the future knowing that things will be the way they are now. We can rely on that comfort to build up and expect the known. We feel strong and masterful within these comfortable walls and can easily predict the risks associated with day-to-day activities. When we express our mastery to the fullest within zones of comfort it can also feel like a zen-like experience, described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as Flow - who studied the psychology of optimal experiences. It is easy to understand why this comfort zone could be so addictive.
On the other hand, like gravity, the comfort zone pulls us to the center and away from the edges. It makes us less curious and diminishes our growth. Why try something new? Why take the risk? If we decide to pursue a new job, a new adventure, meet a new person. The first voice we hear is a nagging narrative of how this step will not work out and why we will end up a failure. Considering a new job? - “you have it good enough here, don’t bother. New people will be horrible. If you fail, everyone will laugh at you”. A new adventure? - “You will waste your money. You will get yourself killed. You will get one of those diseases that cannot be cured.” Meet a new person? - “They will laugh you out of the room. You are not as intelligent or funny as them. Don’t bother, you don’t need a new contact”. The voice, no matter how annoying, is trying to protect us, but it is as dated as our reptilian brain. We don’t have tigers lurking around the corner on a daily basis, nor will we be kicked out of a tribe for saying something edgy.
How can we fight this pull and why would we want to do it in the first place?
Most of our formal learning and growing happens before our early twenties. Then we either decide that we cannot learn more or the risk of social judgment is too great to proceed. What were the forces that helped us do the learning before though? According to Adam Grant's new book “Hidden Potential”, when we were young we did not have a lot of comfort zones to speak off, we did not mind making mistakes, we did not care about sounding stupid or being embarrassed. We tried and practiced and failed until we got it right. We flirted with danger all the time and had our parents guide us, sometimes very narrowly away from danger. As we got older and the social norms set in, so did our perceived learning potential. The reason I am saying perceived, is that the set boundary was not there because of your talent, but because of what others thought the line for learning should be for you. The social norms also started to dictate that failure was no longer an option and sounding stupid when, ex. Learning a foreign language was now considered bad manners and something to be laughed at. It is important to know this background, because it sets the starting point from which you can learn and grow, given that the fears and risks you feel are not there because of you, but because of others.
At some core of your being there are some things that you want to become, experience and be proficient at. And kudos to you, that’s what makes one feel alive craving to live another day. The gap between where you are and where you want to be is experience, learning and personal growth. All of these are outside of where you are now as a person, you have to take a step away from the known, take a fumble, make a jump. Without that commitment to pierce the walls of your comfort zone you won’t be able to achieve what you aspire to. Comfort zone does not like new things, uncomfortable feelings or failure.
How can you leave the Comfort Zone with the least discomfort?
The answer is pretty straight-forward, you have to do it in a step-by-step fashion. What is great though, is if you practice this departure from comfort frequently, then your future attempts will be able to make much longer steps and reach your target faster. Your mind will learn that there is nothing to fear on the other side. The exact guidance requires that at the very least that you pick a direction in which you want to go and make a conscious step of not just learning but also of practice. Only through practice do we grow, but also be ready to fail a lot. Let’s take a new language speaking as an example. We get to be better at pronouncing new words, only by pronouncing and getting active feedback from either a teacher or a native speaker. What will make you speak while feeling the least embarrassed? Is it speaking to strangers? Is it speaking to a friend? Is it speaking to an AI tool? If the first step seems just too far, what would the half-step be? Or what would be a half-step of that. Your main goal is to learn how to define and to continue making these steps and over time it becomes a beaten path.
I hope that this article helped analyze your own comfort zone and consider ways you find out what’s on the other side. I am excited for you to find out your new hidden talents!