“You’re pushing me past my comfort zone!”
This is a phrase that was recently told to me by a child. I was floored to hear such sentiment come from the mouth of a 10-year-old, because children, typically, do not have well defined comfort zones. In fact, childhood is nothing, if not full of constant change, adjustment, and more change. Children learn what they live and repeat what they hear. So, here was this child, telling me that I was pushing her outside of her comfort zone by walking at a slow pace. Makes you wonder what the world is coming to, doesn’t it? In an age of video games, instant this and instant that, there is no surprise that the epidemic of childhood obesity is continually increasing. The most worrisome is when you do not see parents encouraging their children to be independent, to stand on their own two feet, to make decisions and live with the consequences. Ah, but these are all subjects to address at another time. With no reflection or ill regard to the person who said it to me, I find the phrase “outside my comfort zone” to be aggravating….. to the extreme! Why, you may ask? Because when you say you do not want to step outside of your comfort zone, you are in effect expressing one or more of the following:
“I like things just the way they are!”
“I do not want anything to change!”
“I do not want to change!”
“I like being fat!”
“I like being lazy!”
“I like procrastinating!”
“I like living in a pig pen!”
“I like never having enough!”
“I like always having to struggle though the day!”
“I like being treated like a doormat!”
“I like being used!”
“I like being abused!”
“I like being neglected!”
“I like this old comfortable, worn out pair of shoes, and I don’t need another pair!”
I could go on and on here, but I think you should be catching the direction this is going.
What does the phrase “comfort zone” mean exactly? Your comfort zone is quite simply where you are most comfortable--the status quo. Put another way, your comfort zone is a state of behavior that allows you to live day-to-day in a stress-free, low anxiety condition. It is using a limiting set of behaviors that involves the least amount of effort, risk, or discomfort, while establishing a set level of performance. Or perhaps, I should say non-performance!
A person’s personality is defined by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful people will, as a matter of habit, step outside his or her comfort zone in order to accomplish his or her goals. Comfort zones are a matter of mental conditioning that allows you to create and operate within a “safe” set of boundaries that create a false sense of security. Once a comfort zone has been established, many people will tend to stay within the limits of that zone. Notice that word: limits! To step outside of your comfort zone means that you must then
* have new experiences (God forbid!),
*exhibit different behaviors (Say it isn’t so!), and
*respond to your environment in a different manner (Now, there’s a real bummer!)…or,
*and here’s the real kicker…change your environment.
*To step outside your comfort zone means that you HAVE to change.
For many of you, your “comfort zone” is sitting in that big soft easy chair with your feet up and the television turned up as loud as it will go, or as loud as your neighbors will accept. For others, it is staying in a mentally, physically, or emotionally abusive relationship, because you don’t think you deserve any better. For another person it may be staying in a relationship that brings you nothing but misery, because you’re afraid that you won’t be able to support yourself financially, you’re afraid you’re going to be alone, or you’re just afraid of changing anything. For another, it may be watching a child or similarly defenseless person being abused or neglected, because you’re afraid to “make waves;” you don’t want to make someone mad at you or to otherwise upset the apple cart. For yet others, it means staying in a dead-end job or one that makes you miserable, because of false conceptions about the ability to find another job that you may enjoy more, because of fear of losing job security, or because of low self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-worth. The comfort zone is the (home, social, work, or living) environment that you have grown accustomed to.
Your comfort zone is the deciding factor in the friends you make, your acquaintances, your lifestyle, your job, all your relationships, your hobbies, and every other facet of your life. Staying within your comfort zone determines what you accept and what you reject in life. If you are dissatisfied with any facet of your life, you change it by changing your comfort zone or stepping outside of your comfort zone. Staying within your comfort zone means that nothing will ever change, because you are content to just sit there (in whatever situation you are in) and spin your wheels, while never going anywhere and never achieving anything.
Staying within your comfort zone, then, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is a prediction that either directly or indirectly causes itself to come true. Have you ever heard the phrase, “story of my life?” When you feel that a dream or goal cannot be attained, that something or someone is too good for you, that you do not deserve something, that a certain relationship is too good for you, or that you have perpetual bad luck (I could go on and on here, but I think you get the picture)…with this mentality, you do one of two things: you either do not try or you find a way to fail. Find a way to fail? Really? Absolutely! I’ll address that subject a little more in a minute.
For many people, their “bad luck” is their comfort zone! Shocking isn’t it? But think about it. There is comfort in ‘knowing” that if you don’t try, then you can’t fail. There is comfort in always expecting bad things to happen or misfortune to befall you. There is comfort in the predictability of poverty, accidents, crises, drama, problems, and bad decisions. There is comfort in lowering your goals to increase your self-confidence. There is comfort in never setting goals or never knowing the direction you want your life to take.
Now back to the concept of finding a way to fail. Yes, people really do that! It is called self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and actions (both conscious and subconscious) that establish a roadblock between you and success. It is actively and passively working against your own best interests. Consciously, you may want something, but subconsciously you work (or sit, as the case may be) to ensure that you never get it. Self-sabotage is destructive thoughts, feelings, actions, inactions, and behaviors that fulfill your own internal belief that you do not deserve to get “it,” whatever “it” may be. So ultimately, self-sabotage reduces down to a low self-esteem, self-worth, self-efficacy, and self-confidence. At its most extreme, self-sabotage will result in drug, alcohol, or some other type of self-abuse as one attempts to escape the need to manage one’s own state of mind. While in its milder form, self-sabotage results in other types of self-limiting behaviors, such as never stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.
The fact is that we all need those comfort zones, but our comfort zones should also never be static; they should be ever growing and ever changing as we, ourselves, grow and change. The key is to overcome self-limiting beliefs, break free of the fear of change and of succeeding, build your self-esteem to the point that you know you are not only worthy, but it is your RIGHT to live in abundance and to pursue the ever-elusive state of happiness, increase your confidence to the point that you know you can do what it takes to succeed, and figure out what your goals in life are and make a series of concrete steps to achieve those goals. The saddest thing is someone who never achieves anything, because they never step outside their comfort zone in order to grow, change, and enrich their lives.
Granted, change is uncomfortable, sometimes it may even be downright painful, but change is going to happen, whether you like it or not…whether you want it to, or not. Change is inevitable. The question then is: are you going to cause and direct the change or are you going to sit back and passively wait for change (and life) to happen to you?
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