Comfort Zone

It’s six in the morning. You know that right now, you should have been on the track outside jogging to the park and to a good health. Sadly, you were too cosy in that mattress you bought recently after the retailer promised, “This mattress wouldn’t let you get out of your bed.” The blanket and pillow teamed up to eliminate any desire if you had to get out. You sure understand the only thing you are going to gain by staying on your bed is those extra pounds in your body and extra guilt in your soul. And yet … you give up.

That my dear friends is the most graphic description of Comfort Zone that I could give you.

Comfort zone is that hypnotizing land where you are well aware that you should move out, yet you don’t. Either because of in-action or fear of the unknown. You stay too long in this zone and you risk being there forever. What follows is self-pity and a guilt that haunts you forever.

We have all been in this zone at some point in our life. Think about the time where you are in a job, and you want to quit or when you knew you should meet new people for self-enhancement, yet you kept hanging out with same set of people. The golden rule is the sooner we leave this zone, the better.

Keep reading and I’ll let you know how to solve this problem in a very simple way which you can place in your daily routine.

The first step to solving any problem is identifying the problem. So let us see how you can identify if you are in the problem. Here the problem is “Comfort Zone”.

The first and the simplest way is to check if you have been unhappy with any aspect in your life for a long time? Ask yourself probing questions. This will signal that you are in a situation where from you want to get out but haven’t been able to.

The second way is to check your to do list, not only official but personal checklist too. If for an extended period of time, your to do list looked the same, it’s a signal that you are stuck in a loop.

And the third way is to talk to people closest to you, whom you trust – your family and friends. Remember sometimes, things that are apparent to other people are not visible to us because we are too close to the problem. View from another of set eyes do helps.

So, what do you think, how do you get out of your comfort zone?

The shortest answer to this is “act”.

But it’s easier said than done. Hence let’s break down the solution to smaller and easier bits.

First – identify the zone you would like to be in after getting out of your comfort zone. Now, you know where you are and where you want to be. Next identify at least five (5) different ways to reach your desired zone. This represents five (5) things you can do to get out of your comfort zone. Finally, follow Nike’s marketing slogan rigorously, and “just do it”.

Here, most important part is, forget about others opinion and their warnings. Take a leap of faith and just do it. You may start with the easiest of the five ways you identified but start you must. Hopefully one of those routes will take you to your desired zone. And if it doesn’t, start the process all over again until it takes you to your desired zone.

Here is good news, and the good news is you all want to come out of your comfort zone, that’s the reason you are still reading it. This means you decided to step out of one comfort zone and face your fear. All you got to do is, replicate this in other areas of your life and hopefully, you will have a great story to share.

Before you hop on to another read, do not forget, “nothing truly great ever came from a comfort zone”.

Have a good life.