Escaping your Comfort Zone for Growth

“Are you liking your new Normal?”

What a pleasant question. Someone cares about your comfort. Isn’t this we all like? We as humans like the warm & nice, safe feeling that comfort allows us. And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, Simple comforts of life are different from “Comfort Zone”. A comfort zone maybe a physical place where comfort insulates people from growth and reasonable risks. Simple comfort is a place of restoration and A comfort zone is a place of limitations.

At a particular time to grow or to do something different, the comfort zone always plays with us whispering - Are you cozy enough? The immediate answer that we have is - No. and it further takes us with – no worries – I have got just the thing for you. No need to venture out into unknown.. rather - step back into this place where everything is “as is” it always has been. Be comfortable into something familiar.

“Unfortunately – Growth rarely happens in Comfort Zone”

Aspirations of ones plays a major role in personal growth which is directly linked to professional growth and will almost demand that you step into the unknown and the unexperienced.

Most of the times, it relates to our personality traits that define our comfort zones and keep us locked in, but only if we use our knowledge of who we are to insulate ourselves.

We all want to attain the growth and knowing your personality traits can help you define where your growth is. With this knowledge, one can leverage his/her strengths and balancing his/her weaknesses fostering their growth. It’s not about becoming someone else but rather growing into your best self.

There are three Tension points which cemented us in our comfort zones: Our Mindset, Overthinking fear & Lack of Action.

The Mindset:

Mindset is the subset of your personality traits. One needs a goal that inspires them. A goal to matter, it must stretch and for you to stretched with it – one has to believe of achieving that goal. The right Mindset makes that stretch for you.

As Author Carol Dweck put it - “based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” Your Qualities, confidence & capabilities are mobile and they evolve.

The Fear:

Fear is the compound DNA of humans. We all have fears. Fear of the unknown. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of failure. This is the 2nd reason which harness continuously to pull us back. We are afraid of the unknown that “The Change” brings but we forget that “Change is the only constant”. Whether we create it or not – Change will happen and the illusion of safety of our comfort zone will not help to stop it. Many have thought that their comfortable job was safe and then the unknown named COVID arrived in the form of pandemic and they have lost it. Life can change in an Instant. Uncertainty is the way..!!

The Action:

Due to your fixed mindset & due to fearful overthinking, most are now left powerless. The pull of comfort is far greater than the pull of growth, and so one has not even tried to take the smallest action toward their goal —they haven’t given themselves the chance to validate that it is possible to shed the old and grow into the new.

The Action that we do not take to move forward is because we have the wrong mindset, our goals do not inspire, and we do not believe that we can achieve them as we try half heartedly or we are overthinking the fear or we have not tried to step out of it – simply we do not want to take Actions.

You will most likely not be willing to step out of your comfort zone until you are extremely uncomfortable with the comfort zone itself.

Think About It.

Not until you are bored with the comfort of your job – will you consider applying to that start up? Not until you have mastered the learning curve of your mundane skills, delved into its familiarity & felt that you have hit the ceiling with it – will you consider starting to learn new skills? Not until you are fed up with the hustle & bustle of the city routine- will you consider moving to hills or sea?

When one’s comfort zone becomes so much uncomfortable, that is when the spark is lit and that’s when one need to step up to the rhapsody which will help to upgrade your version to the new and growth will start happening.