The Growth That Happens Once You Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Jun 5

To start, getting out of your comfort zone challenges you to learn new things, adapt to new situations, develop new skills, and starts allowing you to trust yourself and your ability to handle anything that comes your way (building confidence).

When we stay in our comfort zones for too long, we start to feel complacent as human-beings because that state does not allow for any personal growth. We don’t have to be challenging ourselves every day or every week, but when you reflect on a three-month period you want to see that you are starting to achieve your higher- level goals & the only way to do that is to push your own limits.

What You Get Out of Challenging Yourself:

You will become a stronger individual when you leave your comfort zone, even if you are afraid you might start to see that the fear is just a warning that the road ahead might not be easy. Identifying that you are scared but also looking at your evidence and strengths of how you know you can get through this, will allow you to see that you are truly capable of doing hard things. The worst-case scenario is that you fail, but there isn’t one person in this world that doesn’t fail trying to do something new for themselves. Learning from this failure instead of getting stuck in it will allow you to keep moving forward anyway just with a different approach.

You will become more creative, when you break your routine, you are now exposed to new possibilities. When you are open to new experiences you will be able to achieve things from a perspective you never imagined.

It allows you to work on your self-esteem, when you start to take steps to get the life you are truly after, you start to believe that these dreams are possible and you are truly capable.

It will help you continue personal development, the younger you are the more willing you are to take risks and as you get older the fear of failure often starts to increase. It’s not the failure that is the problem though, it’s the mindset that you get in after the failure. There is no way to learn without experiencing some level of difficulty.

Leaving your comfort zone can also allow you to meet new people and live new experiences, when you stay stagnant you aren’t exposing yourself to people that are doing things differently than you are used to, which can also lead to feeling stuck. If you have an amazing support system and want more exposure to other ways of doing things, that is a wonderful place to be. You can have both in your life.

Helpful Tips When Struggling to Be Uncomfortable:

Set a timer, even if you expose yourself to something new for 15-20 minutes you are already rewiring your brain to not be afraid around this new situation, The more positive exposure there is, the less your fear will drive you.
Use your coping skills (getting outside, speaking to a friend, meditation, and journaling) will all allow you to reflect even further into what is holding you back from achieving what you really want to achieve.
Practice positive affirmations & Self-Talk: negative internal language will only get you further away from your goals not closer.
Work on your relationship with both rejection and failure, it happens to everyone. The important thing is to recognize how you respond in these situations and then learn that you can process your emotions about it & still have success in the big picture. Do some self-gratitude practice for everything you are accomplishing & recognize your strengths regularly. This will help you see the whole picture of what is going on and will allow you not to hyperfocus on the rejection or failure.