My freshman seminar professor once told me that being uncomfortable is the best place to learn. Getting out of your comfort zone is hard, but everyone needs to stretch themselves. This concept helps you embrace risk and make changes in your life that can lead to personal growth and learning more about yourself. Inside your comfort zone is sense of certainty and familiarity, that’s why stepping outside this zone can be so frightening.
Stepping outside my comfort zone and going across county for college was scary. However, I have learned more about myself in the past eight months living in Boston than I did in the past three years at home. I broke the mold I formed in San Diego by going outside my comfort zone which concluding in myself becoming a more confident, stronger person. Leaving home wasn’t easy but I didn’t want to keep playing it safe and get stuck in an easy routine back at my comfortable home.
Everyone faces stress in their daily life whether they are in their comfort zones or not. There is a difference between daily stressors and the stress that comes with getting out of your comfort zone. Making yourself purposely uncomfortable and putting yourself out there is a healthy stressor. Everyone has heard the cheesy line, “nothing great comes easy.” I am a firm believer in this saying. The fact is that if one is to scared to switch up their daily routine, get out of their comfort zone and try something new, they they will never grow and learn as a person. There is little room for learning and growing when you do the same thing every day.
When you stay in your comfort zone for too long you start holding yourself back instead of challenging yourself to reach your full potential. If you don’t take the risk and put yourself outside your comfort zone you will never know how far you can really go. When we challenge ourselves and take risks, we tend to rise to the occasion more often than not.
It’s very simple, what we fear most about challenging ourselves to step out of our comfort zone is that we might fail and or get hurt in the process. Taking risks, regardless of their outcome, are growth experiences in itself. What people don’t realize enough is that we can overcome these obstacles. It may take a few tries but once we get over the hurdles you can actually succeed in accomplishing something challenging and new. You have no idea what your life can be made of until you wonder outside your own familiar world.
Kids are able to get outside their comfort zone more easily than adults. They are natural risk-takers that haven’t be taught yet to be afraid of failure, holding back or getting hurt. I think we all need to more like our childhood selves and learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
