When things go well, you may sigh with relief and want to stay in this place. It’s comfortable and familiar. You feel at ease, with little to no stress. This is the Comfort Zone. It’s alluring. You feel safe, relieved of life’s insults and injuries.
Who wants to leave some place that’s comfortable? No one, except…you can end up barricading yourself behind an invisible wall and never venture beyond it. That wall usually means no more personal or creative growth. And that is a False Comfort Zone. False because it’s tricking you into thinking you’re safe when the only thing you’re safe from is growth as a person and as a creative.
If you’re feeling stuck creatively or personally, maybe you’ve constructed a wall around you. This post will help you start your journey by breaking down or pushing out the walls and overcoming your False Comfort Zone.
What is the Comfort Zone?
The comfort zone is a psychological state. Its primary sign is a feeling of predictability. It’s familiar and easy, with a lack of challenges like stress or anxiety. Being in your comfort zone means you’ve satisfied your basic needs and you don’t have to deal with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings.
Psychologists have been exploring links between anxiety and performance since the early 1800s. The first experiments involved mice learning a maze. When they placed the mice in the maze, the mice sometimes completed it and sometimes they didn’t. Given a mild electric shock, motivated the mice to complete the maze. The higher the voltage of the shock, the greater their motivation…up to a point. When the shock reached a certain voltage, the mice hid rather than try to solve the maze.
Overtime psychologists learned humans have a similar response to stress and anxiety. Too little of either and humans stagnate. A little motivates us to perform well. But too much stress or anxiety pushes us into a ‘panic’ zone where our fight, flight, or freeze instincts take over.
The Comfort Zone is a nice place to visit but there’s danger of staying too long. The longer you stay, the more value you give to the low risk-low anxiety state you’ve achieved. Your desire to stay in that state limits your behaviors and thoughts. You have less and less desire to reach for higher levels of growth or understanding. Taking fewer and fewer risks, your progress stops. Creatively and personally, you stagnate.
Move the Barriers of Your Comfort Zone
Your comfort zone provides a safe place with barriers to whatever scares you. Some common barriers are fear of being different, resistance to change, fear of failure, and the fear of not being good enough. Whatever your comfort zone is, understand that you don’t have to step “outside” all at once. Take small steps.
Awareness
It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone. Remember, you don’t have to do the scariest thing first. You are taking the baby step of awareness. Look at the place you feel stuck. Just one at a time, if you have more than one.
How big is it? Figure out where you feel a little fear or anxiety and where it’s close to panic level.
Understand your personal strengths. If you can’t figure out what those are, ask a trusted friend or two to list two or three strengths they see in you. If that’s too scary, try taking an online assessment.
There is a fee for the Clifton StrengthsFinder. It asks a series of questions and categorizes your answer in areas it identifies as your top strengths. You get the report along with a detailed explanation of your top five strengths and a suggested action plan. (I took this one several years ago and highly recommend it. And no, that’s not an affiliate link.)
The Fascination Advantage is also not free and is reportedly a slightly different take on identifying your talents.
Here’s a free test. It’s reportedly based on or similar to the Myers Briggs. It can at least get you started on identifying your personal strengths.
Identify
Next, identify what is on the other side of that wall. Is it a fear, a resistance? Perhaps it’s the need to be safe or the need to be perfect. There is no wrong answer. It’s your answer. And a step toward rewarding yourself with the benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone.
Reframe
You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.
Brian Tracy
Society identifies all stress as bad. That’s not true. Psychologically, there’s no difference between anxiety and excitement. Stress can energize you. It helps you get through a public speech, go on a first date, or try something new and fun.
Understand Neuroplasticity
Your brain is amazing. When you learn something new, your brain creates new connections between neurons. You literally rewire your brain when you learn something new! You can rewire your brain so you’re not stuck. Isn’t that cool?
Do Something Different
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Make one small change in your everyday routines. It can be anything. The change in your routine is key. It breaks you out of comfortable habits. You learn you can make small changes and that will encourage you to make more changes.
Grow Your Skills
Expand your knowledge in one area that you feel relatively confident. Let growth in that area inspire you to grow in other areas.
Try Something New
It can be a new food, a new exercise, a new restaurant or a coffee shop. Start with one new thing. Explore. Expand your comfort zone.
Challenge Your Beliefs
This can take many forms. If there’s a genre you “hate,” ask for a reading recommendation for someone new to the genre on your favorite social media platform or ask a friend. Read at least 50 pages.
Maybe you believe in one of these nine myths about creativity. Challenge your belief.
Explore other cultures, other lifestyles, or other beliefs. The point isn’t what belief you challenge, it’s that you challenge yourself with new ideas.
Be Honest with Yourself
It’s only through honest communication, either in your private journal or with a trusted friend, that you will understand yourself well enough to step out of your comfort zone and grow.
Make Your Comfort Zone a Bubble
May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.
Nelson Mandela
You can stretch the walls of a bubble and make it grow. So don’t stay stuck in a false comfort zone with walls, choose to grow. Push the walls of your comfort zone out a little at a time until it encompasses you embrace the challenge of being just scared enough to try.
References
Image
Featured image by Adriana Morales from Pixabay
Second image purchased from Deposit Photos
Final image by Willgard Krause from Pixabay
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