Are you afraid to step out of your Comfort Zone, too?
In the literature of personal growth and development, the phrase “Stepping out of one’s Comfort Zone” appears a lot. I think of comfort zone as the world you have created for yourself, consciously or unconsciously. This includes your belief system, thought patterns, habits, what’s permissible to say and what’s not, what emotions you can and can’t express, and so on. In a nutshell, it is the way you survive each day.
What is a comfort zone? Why is it scary stepping out of it? And what is the cost of staying in it?
In order to answer these questions, I’ll use an analogy of a video game, which I used to play several years ago, called World of Warcraft. In this game, whenever you create a new character you start at Level 1. Your character has no skills, zero money, is wearing no armor and holding a blunt weapon. Your journey starts in a small safe town where you were born. Most of the critters in the area won’t attack you unless provoked and you can safely wander around and explore the area. If you bring up the map, you are able to clearly see the map of your town while rest of the surrounding world is enveloped in a layer of dusty fog.
The only way for a player to view the rest of the world map is to physically explore those areas. As you step into new areas the fog lifts and you are able to clearly see what lies ahead? As a Level 1 player with no armor and skills, it is suicidal to explore the areas beyond your comfort zone. If a player tries to venture out into a high level zone, all kinds of critters will attack and kill you. The goal of the game is to level up by developing new skills in order to make more money to buy better gear, weapons, rides and enjoy the game.
Now the question is, why you would want to venture into an unknown scary world where almost everything is trying to get you? And the answer is because all the treasures are hidden, just beyond your comfort zone. You will have to fight the scary monsters and slay powerful dragons in order to earn gold and other valuable items. The other option is to live with in your comfort zone where everything is friendly and nice and soon it gets boring because you won’t level up and eat same type of food and keep wearing weak armor and holding a blunt weapon all your life.
You advance in the game by gaining experience which requires doing quests (at Wright Foundation we call them Assignments). This assignment way of living will take you out of your comfort zone and you will learn life enhancing skills and grow into a person you are meant to be and eventually find your purpose in life.
If you want to learn how to develop Personal Power and ability to step out your comfort zone attend Free seminar by Dr. Bob Wright on Wednesday, November 15th.
In my next article I’ll explain the term “Allies” who help you in your personal growth journey.
