🏋🏽How to Push Yourself Out of Your Comfort Zone
It’s easy to become stuck in your comfort zone, doing the same things, the same way all the time. This is a dangerous trap as this leads to complacency and prevents growth, since you never allow yourself to be tested. I used to live like this, always choosing to take the easy way out. From 2021, I chose to actively seek discomfort so that I would step out of my comfort zone and I feel better for having done this. Let’s explore what comfort zones are, why they can be both good and bad, and the ways we can get out of our comfort zones.
What are comfort zones?
They are self-explanatory. Comfort zones are routines that we develop that put us at ease. This can be eating ice-cream while watching Netflix, lying in bed while scrolling on social media or watching TV. These habitual actions give us happiness in the moment. Comfort zones have these traits:
They are easy and their outcomes are known beforehand
There is no fear of failure
They give a sense of happiness once they are completed
There is minimal thinking used during these activities.
Basically, they’re easy and fun.
Benefits and harmful effects of comfort zones
Comfort zones give a sense of familiarity. It’s part of our human nature to seek out “easy and fun” activities. The good thing about comfort zones are that they are easy to do, because their outcomes are certain. For example, when you open up YouTube, you know what you are getting yourself into, which is watching the latest video, so it’s pretty hard to fail at that.
Because comfort zones are easy, you can be in autopilot for the most part and enjoy the thing you are doing. You don’t need to think when you want to go onto Facebook and scroll through posts. For a lot of people, comfort zones allow them to “switch“ their brain off and allow themselves to unwind from a long day of work.
When used at the right time, comfort zones are beneficial and allow the mind and body to recuperate. However, when comfort zones are overused and become the default, it leads to procrastination, lack of productivity and feelings of regret.
Since comfort zones do not require much thinking, there is no growth from being stuck in a comfort zone. Comfort zones are easy, so, by definition, you are not being challenged. This is why we should embrace the fear and discomfort. By becoming comfortable doing uncomfortable things, the uncomfortable things eventually become familiar and easy.
“Growth happens outside your comfort zone.”
👣Actionable steps to get out of your comfort zone
Here are 4 principles that have worked for me that you can try to get you out of your comfort zone:
🐸Do the hard thing first: The French call this “swallowing the frog”. It means that you should do the the hardest thing for that day in the morning, so that when you accomplish that task, everything else will seem easier by comparison. For me, this means as soon as I wake up, I lift my dumbbells for 15 minutes before I go to work. This really boosts my confidence and helps me tackle the rest of the day by accomplishing these “small“ wins.
🔁Do the hard thing, again and again, without expecting any results for a long time. The rationale is that it is hard to be afraid or uncomfortable doing something that you have done so many times. You build confidence in yourself just by doing the thing repeatedly, because you know that you have done this before, so you know the likely outcome.
“Don’t build confidence. Build evidence. Confidence comes as a result of evidence. Not the other way around.”
💡Do one new thing a day: Novelty creates excitement. Excitement provides challenge and allows you to use your brain more. You can start small and build from there. In my case, one morning in June 2020, I decided on a whim that “being ambidextrous“ was my new goal. I started by brushing my teeth with my left hand [my non-dominant hand] for just 2 minutes, every morning, for about a month. Then I moved on to eating with my left hand for several months, before then finally using chopsticks with my left hand. While it was really frustrating at first and for a long time, I eventually became comfortable using my left hand so much that I now do chores and eat with my left hand by default. Will this ultimately help me in the future? Maybe. But that’s not what matters. What matters is that I chose to do something new because it was meaningful to me. I was not forced by anyone. Your life is shaped by the choices you make, not by what others choose for you.
🧠Embrace the beginner mindset: You have to be okay knowing that when you are starting something new, you are going to suck at this. While this is obvious, we often compare ourselves to others who are much farther up the ladder than us see the huge gap between. Even if people laugh at how much you suck, everyone was a beginner at some point. Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Michael Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio were all beginners at one point. The difference is that most people quit as soon as they begin something new, because they think the thing they’re doing is too difficult. If you just stick it out for a while, you will be ahead of the majority of people, who give up at the slightest bit of discomfort. Your skills will improve significantly and you will be more likely to stick to the thing. It’s okay to be a beginner; there is no shame in it. If it is a priority to you, stick it out for about a month and then reassess.
For the last 9 months or so, I’ve been following Alex Hormozi who’s a rad entrepreneur. If you want to learn more about stepping out of your comfort zone, check out his blog post: Lean Into The Pain.
