F*#ck leaving your comfort zone!

In personal development almost everyone speaks about “leaving the comfort zone” in order to succeed in whatever area. Well, it sounds sexy, adventurous, courageous. This is what heroes do. But is it really?

In the book “Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide” by Brandon Webb and David Mann there is another very interesting concept: the competence zone (or control zone). I personally find this concept more effective in order to succeed in a certain area. And in retrospective I would say that I applied it unknowingly almost every time I had to achieve something, including things that scared the shit out of me.

So, let’s dissect both concepts a little bit.

Comfort zone:

Every organism on Earth has it comfort zone in which it thrives. Even we humans. The bodies function most efficiently within certain temperature ranges. While frogs from temperate regions thrive well under relatively cool and moist conditions, frogs from lowland tropical rainforest prefer higher temperatures. Leaving their respective “comfort zones” would result in decreased performance, hibernation or even death, depending on how far they leave their comfort zone.

While European common water frogs prefer temperate climates (left photo), Costarican glassfrogs prefer tropical climate. What would happen if they left their “comfort zone” too far.

Being part of the Mammalia class humans can produce heat by physiological processes and therefore can tolerate wider ranges of outside temperatures than frogs. However, if I decided to leave my comfort zone regarding temperature I could get into trouble quickly. Walking during summer for some hours through a temperate forest only with boots and shorts is not a big deal. But try the same in winter time while air temperature drops to freezing levels, also only in boots and shorts. Or even more extreme, go to the Arctic circle wand walk 20 km in winter time dressed only in summer clothes.

More advanced cold exposure training in the Austrian Alps. Prior to that I practiced by increasing the duration of cold showers and winter walks in summer clothes. This walk took approx. one and a half hour in freezing temperatures. However, I would not call me cold-resistant yet.

Another example comes from music. Let’s say you are playing an instrument and want to learn a new fast piece of music. You can immediately leave your comfort zone and try to play it in the original speed. Chances are that you will hit the most notes incorrectly resulting in not playing the actual piece but something that is deviating from it.

Practicing an instrument slowly.

It becomes obvious that leaving the comfort zone is not very useful, or even may be deadly.

Competence zone:

Contrary to animals, we humans can consciously work on our abilities. Here is where the concept of competence zone comes into play. Assess the limits of your abilities. This is your current competence zone, i.e., a set of skills or skill levels. Fear comes from feeling of being not able to control a situation. This is why I and most other people did not act on certain areas. It was necessary to do something but we were too afraid of doing it. If you want to achieve something you are currently not able to achieve then make a list of needed skills in that area. Which skills do you have, which of them are sufficiently well developed, and which do you have to acquire. And then work step by step on those that need do be improved or developed. Step by step you are expanding the boundaries of your competence zone.

Expansion of the competence zone is equal to growth. Today green, in five months of learning necessary skills in red, and after 12 months your competence zone is even bigger due to more experience and/or even more useful skills. Graphic by W. Lapinski.

Knowledge is power. You are pushing the limits from within. Still being in your comfort zone, but now outside of what once was your old comfort zone, and which still is outside their current comfort zone for unskilled people. You have created your new normal by developing new skills and improving the ones that you already had. This, my friend is progress. This is overcoming.

As time passes by (x-axis from right to left) you learn new skills and hence your competence increases (red), your fears decrease. You are growing, getting stronger — your anxiety shrinks. Graphic by W. Lapinski.

And things that you were not able to do some time ago are now normal stuff for you. Situations that used to scare you yesterday you now are comfortable with. As Brandon Webb and David Mann put it: “first crawl, then walk, then run.” And who knows, maybe you can even fly someday.

I hope that helps you as it did and still does to me.

Cheers,

Wito

For all who want to dive deeper into the rabbit hole (Amazon affiliate links from which I get a small percentage, for you it does not cost more):

English:

Webb & Mann. 2018. Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide.

Book https://amzn.to/3UaCyCy

Audible https://amzn.to/4aMbT4r

Kindle https://amzn.to/4aSyV9Z

Deutsch:

Webb & Mann. 2019. Angst überwinden wir ein Navy Seal.

Buch gebunden: https://amzn.to/3vM30Jm

Kindle https://amzn.to/4aw4OoR

Watch also my YouTube video “Boosting your health with cold exposure”