Is your ‘comfort zone’ holding you back?

Are you in your ‘comfort zone’? Maybe you even have a love/hate relationship with your comfort zone. As success coaches, we often work with people who have goals they want to achieve in their lives. They can vision what they want but sometimes they get stuck in their ‘comfort zone’, a familiar place that they consider ‘safe’. Shirley Hofstetter said, “If you want to play it safe, you don’t want to grow”. Does being in your comfort zone keep you from growing and achieving what you really want in life? If so, let’s look at some ways to get out of your comfort zone.

First, reframe how you think about trying something outside of your comfort zone. If you try something and you don’t achieve it at first, you can’t really lose it because you never had it in the first place. You always gain knowledge and you can try again with more chance of success. Doug remembered a story about what Thomas Edison said when people asked him how he could keep trying after he had failed ten thousand times in attempts to invent the light bulb. Edison reframed it by saying that he hadn’t failed ten thousand times, he just learned ten thousand ways it wouldn’t work. Perseverance helps to get to the right result.

People might find public speaking or even meeting new people as out of their comfort zone. When you want to achieve something, practice and vision success and be around supportive people. By taking small steps you will gain confidence to take larger steps, so you can reach your goals.

We asked some people how they got out of their comfort zones. First, we talked to Brenna Zavadsky, a physical trainer who helps lots of people get out of their comfort zones. We asked her about a time when she got out of her comfort zone. Brenna shared, “Most specifically, I can recall learning how to swim in open water for doing triathlons. It was a huge hurdle to get over. I could swim in a pool. I watched my kids swim. I grew up swimming in the lake – but to actually swim with other people in the water and be timed, it was just unbelievably out of my comfort zone. I had some friends and we worked through it. We learned how to breathe and work through all of those jitters. Eventually, I did a few triathlons and ended up swimming in the IRONMAN in Madison with over a thousand people swimming at the same time for over two miles. It was pretty cool to get out of my comfort zone and then to accomplish something like that.” I (Lynn) noted that Brenna started out being afraid but she overcame each challenge to finally reach success. “Yes, I had tears in my eyes in my first triathlon. I’m on my back doing the backstroke, thinking, ‘Oh Lord, please help me’. Then working through it. It was still scary, definitely, even at the end. But you know that big things happen when you get out of that box.”

Then we met John Haik, who shared an experience of being out of his comfort zone. John said, “I studied abroad in Japan in 2014. It was my first time getting to experience a new culture. It was totally out of my comfort zone. I had to speak Japanese, a totally different language. Learning to cope with that and be out of my comfort zone was a lot.”

We also met Remington (Remi) Werner who told us her story. “I grew up in a really small town – less than a thousand people. I went to my undergrad at a 4 year school in a super-small town, less than a thousand people. Then I moved to Eden Prairie and started school at the University of Minnesota. So that was the biggest ‘jumping out of the comfort zone’ for me, going from two super-small towns to Minneapolis.”

Congratulations to Brenna, John and Remington for getting out of their comfort zones to gain new and exciting experiences. How about you? Would you like to get out of your comfort zone?

Here’s a challenge: We encourage you to identify some areas where you would like to get out of your comfort zone and try some new things. Take some small steps, then bigger steps and you can get there. Neale Walsch has a powerful quote. He said, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. We would enjoy hearing how you overcame your fear and got out of your comfort zone.

Chanhassen residents Doug and Lynn Nodland are Success Coaches and owners of The Balance Center. They can be contacted at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2018 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.