The Comfort Zone

Webster’s Dictionary says “comfort” is a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. I’d say if you stay there too long, you won’t reach your full potential and regret will eat away at you.
This will keep you at a job you hate, in a relationship with someone you loathe, in health predicaments you could have worked to improve upon.
The thing keeping you in the comfort zone is fear. Fear that you’ll never get another job, fear that you’ll never find another person to love you, fear that it’s just too much work to improve your health.
Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what people will think of you. Fear of failure. Fear that you are powerful beyond measure and you’re unsure how those close to you will see you when you get there.
There’s nothing wrong with fear, itself. For millions of years it’s kept animals and humans alive. Being fearless isn’t the answer; that’ll get you in deep trouble most times too. However, being fearful of everything that it keeps you where you are and not heading to where you want to be; that’s where the problems will lie. Calculated action in the face of fear is where the magic happens.
Everyone has been there. Find someone that you look up to, or want to emulate. Find someone that’s making changes in the lives of people and this world. They have been there too.
Instead, procrastination finds its seat at your dinner table. Instead of facing the fears, you tell yourself stories to avoid them. Hours become days. Days become weeks. Weeks, years….Then on your deathbed you tell your loved ones of all the things you wish you would have done, and the places you wished to visit. “Don’t live your life with regrets”, you say.
They say with age comes wisdom. I still don’t know much about power tools and computers, but this I believe to be truth; action in the face of fear lessens the fear.
It’s uncomfortable. I’d say if you’re not scared you’re not trying hard enough to improve.
There are a few exercises that have helped me over the years to find comfort in being uncomfortable. Hopefully they can be useful to you as they have been for me, here are my top 3;
– Understanding that rarely are these life or death decisions for myself, family and close friends.
– Stepping back and looking at the world, nature and its vastness and all the unknown around us helps to realize how small this choice is. It will give great perspective to the importance you feel in any one decision you may be afraid of making. Realizing that it’s not one thing, but the sum of all the little things, done over and over that will create the greatest change.
-Look ahead 6-12 months from now and think about how life would, or wouldn’t be depending on my decision. Not tomorrow. No immediate gratification only. Big picture thinking here.