Stepping out of your comfort zone
Comfort zones are the easiest place to stay in. It’s as warm and safe as you are under a blanket on a cold, rainy night. Ideally, we all want to stay in our comfort zones at all times — never venturing forth into the unknown.
Why should we step forward, when all that we want and need are right here beside us? What’s the point of walking into the dark, misty forest when the vast, green meadow is just good enough.
I’m here to tell you, the vast, green meadow isn’t good enough. You need to step out of your comfort zone to experience more in life. You can’t sit still and let life pass you by.
Stepping out of your comfort zone may be scary but it may be the best decision you make.
Failure is the stepping stone to success
Failure does not mean that you need to stop doing what you’re doing. Did JK Rowling stop writing after being rejected by 15 publishers? No. If she had, would we have the Harry Potter book series?
If Thomas Alva Edison stopped trying after failing 10,000 times, it would be dark times we’re living in.
My point is, never see failure as the end result of your progress — instead, see it as a stepping stone towards success. Learn from your mistakes and then work around it to get better results.
Every bruise you get from falling reminds you of how far you’ve gone. Take each failures as a lesson to learn from and use that to your advantage in making new decisions.
New environment is scary, but it is even scarier to be stuck in the same place
I can never envision myself staying in the same place forever, be it a job, a goal or even a place. I always see myself reaching higher and higher goals as each smaller goals are reached.
When you are complacent, you don’t find the need to challenge yourself, thus limiting the extent of your capabilities. By accepting new challenges and changing your current environment, you are thrust into a different environment which is able to test your adaptability. Like the saying ‘what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger’ — each new hurdles you get past builds your endurance.
Stress is part of the equation
I know that being in the same place ensures that you are stress-free because everything you are dealing with are things that you’ve already face a countless times, so the thought of being in a stressful situation could put off a lot of people from trying new things. Stress is inevitable. It’s a part of a growing process.
I always welcome stress if it is leading me up a path towards success. Even though I may hate it, eventually when the end product is in front of you, all the stress that you have been going through would have dissipated into thin air like condensation.
Fear is imminent
The biggest thing you’d face trying to leave your comfort zone is fear — fear of failure, fear of stress, fear of losing, fear of not being the best. There is no way to disregard fear, instead use it to your advantage.
If you fear that you’re not going to be the best enough, don’t worry about it. There’s always going to be someone better, bigger and more talented than you are. As long as you reached your own personal goals — that is success enough in your books.
If you fear that you’ll never reach the success that you crave, don’t let it stop you from trying anyways. The best success stories come from those who tried and tried and tried until they got it.
If a lot more people step out of their comfort zones, there’s no end to what humanity can achieve in their short lives. I for one, take these advice to my heart and try something new every time. If I fail, I pick myself up, dust off the debris and step forward to a new challenge.
I’ll always let the fear of settling push me towards reaching my goals. And I suggest you to do the same too.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 292,582+ people.
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