Sometimes You Leap Out of Your Comfort Zone
This is the only way to grow.
As you’re reading this, I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I have crossed an ocean to explore not just a country I’ve never been to before, but a continent.
My wife and I have been planning to travel to Europe for years. Finally, we took the leap, and we are visiting England and exploring much of what it has to offer.
I’ve visited two other countries, but both are part of North America – Mexico and Canada. I’ve also been to 43/50 of the United States. But crossing an ocean? Never managed to do that. Until now.
This is not a step out of my comfort zone. It’s a leap. And a fairly large one.
Here’s the thing. The only way to truly grow, evolve, and change yourself is to get out of your comfort zone. Sometimes you get to do this gradually. And sometimes you leap. Either way, leaving your comfort zone is important to living life as you desire to.
Why?
What is a comfort zone, really?
The phrase “comfort zone” is a misnomer. While it can, in optimal circumstances, be an actual, factual place of comfort and contentment, more often than not it’s something else entirely.
Frequently, a comfort zone is more of a stability or familiarity zone. The problem this presents, however, is that stability tends to be fleeting. That’s because of the one and only constant in the universe: Change.
Like it or not, change can, will, and does occur. No matter who, what, where, how, or why you are, change is inevitable. And that, unfortunately, terrifies people. For that reason, they find these false comfort zones to set themselves up in. They cling to the familiar stability of what they know, even if it’s not, in fact, comfortable.
It’s the job you loathe but keep doing because of the uncertainty of finding better. This is the relationship you maintain even though it’s toxic because it beats being alone. It’s the place you have always lived that you’re utterly disenchanted with, yet feels better than choosing the unknown of an unfamiliar place.
The reality of the comfort zone is that it’s where you believe you have stability and familiarity in your life. But that doesn’t mean it’s truly comfortable. But because we are so focused on the notion of needing to have that familiarity and stability in our lives, we aren’t encouraged to leave our comfort zones behind.
Quite the opposite, unfortunately.
Expectations versus desires
As children, we’re encouraged to imagine. Dream big. Be creative, artistic, and free-spirited. To a point. Don’t get me wrong, I think learning how to behave in public and other forms of disciplining behavior are important. This is about stifling the spirit.
Once kids start school, the push begins to make them productive members of society. Great, on the one hand, but also disempowering on the other. If they’re lucky, they have parents and teachers who encourage their more creative outlets. Even then, society’s expectations often run counter to this, and they’re forced to find work within a limited idea.
We are encouraged to choose very specific paths. Once school is done, move on to learn a trade or go to college. After that, get a job that matches these. Work that job for the next 4 to 6 decades. Retire. Along the way, maybe raise a family or such. Pass it on to the next generation to do the same.
Expectations can run counter to desires, and because other people are more comfortable with things they’re familiar with than not, they hold the same. But when someone pushes out of their comfort zone to find and/or create something new, they meet resistance.
This can be internal, struggling with what you were taught about the need to meet expectations. It can be external, struggling with others who think they have a stake in your life and their expectations of and for you. Both present challenges to leaving comfort zones.
That’s why sometimes this involves steps while other times it involves leaps.
Taking steps and leaps
Choosing to step out of your comfort zone can be scary enough. Leaping out is a whole other madness.
I’ve been anxious as we’ve gotten closer and closer to departure. Certain necessities we decided we had to address made me unexpectedly uncomfortable. Many “what if?” situations came to mind. Doubts, concerns, and other questions have impacted my sleep, focus, and mood.
When I let my fear overwhelm me, my heart speeds up, and I feel those obnoxious, unpleasant butterflies in my stomach. The question is, do I allow this to be my dominant thought process?
I have a choice. Instead, I can pause and consider this another way. I’m going across an ocean and exploring somewhere wholly, totally, wildly new to me. How cool is that? This is a leap out of my comfort zone on so, so many levels. And you know what? I need this. This is how I break past my blocks and take new steps never taken before to have, do, and be the person I desire most to be.
Sometimes you step out of your comfort zone, and sometimes you leap out of it. This is a leap. I have no idea what will come of it, but the choice to fear it or revel in it is wholly mine. Either way, I am leaving my comfort zone behind.
I am choosing to see it for the potential and possibilities it represents.
Leaving your comfort zone isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
Recognizing and acknowledging that your comfort zone might not be truly comfortable opens you to take steps or step or leap out of it. Knowing that leaving your comfort zone behind is the key to growth and creating a life you desire to experience, you can make choices and decisions to pursue opportunities when they arise to have new experiences and see where they take you.
This empowers you. When you’re empowered, that can, in turn, empower others around you. That’s why I share these weekly posts with you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in ways that open you to more potential, possibility, and the like. From there, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you in the here and now.
The more aware you are of yourself in the present, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you and empower them, too. That is an amazing conduit to help reason overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the six-hundred-fifty-sixth (656) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energy for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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