Understanding your comfort zone
Operating within the comfort zone can provide stability and rest, but growth resides in the learning zone. None of it is easy, in fact, sometimes it feels downright stupid.
Everyone talks about the comfort zone easily. Which makes sense, it’s comfortable.
It’s the bits beyond that make us sweat, keep us up at night, and cause anxiety. But to really grow you do have to move beyond the comfort zone.
"If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done." - Thomas Jefferson
Let’s first talk about what it all looks like together. I’m going to use an example that I struggle with everyday, being that I work from home and often find myself focused far too long and needing to be amongst other humans, outside, in the fresh air.
I believe the meme is “going on a stupid walk for my stupid mental health”
I guess this is the point where I mention we are introverted desk workers with focus issues, so getting out of focus mode to go out into the world is sometimes more difficult than it really should be. Especially when building a business, if we aren’t in the ‘doing’ mode, we feel like we’re somehow failing. Also, another factor in that is that we relocated to Portugal where we are still learning language, culture, and some basics that take a lot more mental load for daily tasks and interactions. All of this means sometimes going on a simple walk seems too far outside the zone of comfort.
The Comfort Zone: A Space of Familiarity
The comfort zone represents a state of ease and routine. In this zone, individuals operate with minimal stress, engaging in tasks or situations they know well. This is why it’s comfortable, it doesn’t take much thought at all. If this zone were clothing it would be your favorite pair of socks or a comfy sweater.
While the comfort zone fosters feelings of safety and control, it can also lead to stagnation if one remains there for too long. Think about how motivated you are to go outside, explore different things, maybe even do things around the house if you are in your comfy clothes/socks. You may not make it off the couch.
Growth requires stepping beyond this boundary. When I coach people, I tend to advise them to step outside the boundary at first in small intervals, then congratulate yourself. It’s forming a small habit. You have something that triggers you, something you do, and some sort of treat to entice you to repeat it again at some point. It’s hard work, and you don’t want to over do it. Sometimes even a few minutes of the day can do it.
If you want to learn more about habit building, check out Habit building can help reduce the noise and stress of transitions and growth.
Did you know 1% of your day is a little under 15 minutes? That’s more than enough time to try something new. Especially if you are following the 1% better idea.
The Fear Zone: A Barrier to Growth
Beyond the comfort zone lies the fear zone, often experienced as the first barrier to leaving one’s familiar surroundings. This can be as simple as the comfy sock scenario where you have to put on what I call “outside people clothes”. My mind goes into so many things from my feet will be cold while I’m looking for acceptable things to wear outside the house, to asking if it’s raining or cold. Then wondering what I really need to be doing out there in the first place.
The fear zone is characterized by self-doubt (am I going to have to deal with something I don’t understand, or have the mental energy to do it?), discomfort (cold feet during the switch), and external challenges such as criticism or comparison to others (everyone else will seem so much more awake, I’m sure they know I just changed to go get lunch, it’ll be clear I’ve not mastered my verb conjugations). It is so much more comfortable in the house.
While it can feel unsettling, this zone is an essential step in the growth process. Moving through it allows individuals to access the learning zone.
Key aspects of the fear zone include:
Self-doubt: Questioning one’s abilities or worthiness. Me: “Why is the simple act of going outside is such a blocker for me?” “I moved here to learn culture and language and now I’m freezing up and forgetting words, I don’t have the energy to do that today”
Excuses and avoidance: Using external factors as reasons to return to the comfort zone. Me: “I really need to focus on that content/accounting/client thing”
Sensitivity to feedback: Struggling to handle criticism constructively. Me: “I’m going to run into that neighbor that gives me kind but stern feedback about my Portuguese, and I just don’t want to deal right now” or “I don’t want to run into the nice guy at the restaurant that gives us 1,000 bits of advice about his health tonic tea and his physical workouts”
To move past the fear zone, individuals can build resilience, seek support, and focus on incremental progress.
For me, sometimes that looks like support from others, like my husband who I work with. We’ll form a team agreement to get outside, get some fresh air, then come back in and re-focus our energy. Sometimes we’ll just walk down the park and back, a few blocks at best. At least it’s something.
Sometimes we’ll walk a different direction out the back door if we don’t want to interact as much with people, but go straight toward the waterfront. Sometimes we’ll habit stack and take out the recycling to feel better about ourselves for getting something done in the house as well as a quick walk.
The Learning Zone: Growth Through Challenge
Just beyond the fear zone lies the learning zone, where individuals encounter new challenges and opportunities for development. This is the part of the going outside story that starts with me saying something like “it really is a nice day out, we need to do this more often”, “this isn’t so bad”, or we run into someone we really enjoy seeing.
In this zone, people face manageable stress levels that encourage adaptation and skill acquisition without becoming overwhelming. Tasks here are slightly beyond one’s current capabilities, promoting growth in knowledge, skills, and confidence. This for us could mean we push a little farther and walk out to the beach, which means I probably didn’t wear the right shoes and my feet will hurt the next day. Or maybe we try to go to run an errand and do it in our new language.
This zone was the zone years ago where I’d push way too far, basically pulling mental and actual muscles to make up for lost time somehow. It never worked, and in fact, made my growth more difficult.
Key attributes of the learning zone include:
Increased focus and engagement: New challenges activate curiosity and problem-solving. Often when we do get out we get a chance to talk through business (still) and find different ways to come at things. Walking meetings are really, really useful. And yet we still need to be reminded constantly.
Skill development: Exposure to unfamiliar tasks or ideas fosters the acquisition of new competencies. Sometimes while we are out we run across something we don’t understand in Portuguese or some cultural thing that gets us talking.
Resilience building: Overcoming small, intentional challenges strengthens perseverance and adaptability. Like the well-meaning locals here that give us more advice than we really want, for example. These small little challenges help us learn how to operate in a culture and environment that is very different.
The Panic Zone: A Space to Avoid
If the challenges exceed one’s capacity to cope, they may enter the panic zone. In this state, stress becomes unmanageable, often leading to feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, or fear. Learning is hindered, and performance suffers.
Story time! I practiced a phrase for an hour in Portuguese: “Hello, good morning, I’m here to pick up a package, please”. When I got to the desk the lady said one or two words I didn’t know and were not in the movie I’d played in my head. I got nervous and said “evening good, I’m here, hello please”. I didn’t entirely panic, but I didn’t not panic either. I was right on that edge. Made it work through some miming and pointing, but I left in a full-on sweat.
Any therapist will tell you that while occasional exposure to high-pressure situations can build resilience, staying in the panic zone too long can lead to burnout or negative mental health outcomes. Yep, that tracks.
It’s safe to say we can easily get burned out, and have negative mental health outcomes like not wanting to try anymore, not today, I want to go hide, please.
The Dynamic Balance Between Zones
Personal and professional growth comes from intentionally navigating between these zones. But you really have to listen to yourself. And to listen to yourself you also have to know yourself. Here we are with the whole ‘you’ part that so important.
Recognize your baseline: Understand your comfort zone and identify areas where you feel too stagnant or complacent. You might have to do this over and over again.
Stretch your boundaries: Deliberately step into the new zones with tasks or challenges that push your limits without overwhelming you. Don’t stretch too hard, you can pull mental and physical muscles here. Think of it like gentle yoga for boundaries.
Monitor your stress levels: Stay attuned to signs that you may be approaching the panic zone and take steps to recalibrate. Now, depending on the situation that can be exiting the post office quickly and eating a burger, or that could just be retreating to your comfort zone.
Benefits of Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone
Increased creativity: Novel experiences foster innovation and new perspectives. Your brain is hard at work creating new synapses, firing new pathways.
Enhanced confidence: Successfully navigating challenges builds self-assurance. You are feeling better about whatever it is, you might be getting excited at your progress and wanting to share it with someone.
Stronger adaptability: Regularly stepping into new experiences develops the ability to handle uncertainty and change. Practicing certain moves over and over builds muscle memories that build on one another over time, pushing your comfort zone for that skill into the realm of being near-automatic.
Strategies for Growth
Understand your zones: Recognize where you are and identify small steps to move forward. I’m going to take a note from the Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi was a master at understanding zones, like ‘paint the fence’.
Prepare for fear: Accept that discomfort and self-doubt are natural parts of growth. Everyone in our town knows we are trying, and they are really kind about it but wow does it sting sometimes when you try and you get an answer back in perfect English, “let’s speak English?”
Stretch intentionally: Challenge yourself in ways that push your limits without overwhelming you. Like perhaps practicing parts of sentences and getting them down really, really well. Don’t go for the whole crane kick at once, don’t try a soliloquy in Portuguese. Get the moves down, get the basic words.
Seek support: Surround yourself with mentors or peers who encourage and guide you. Everyone needs a good foundation.
Celebrate progress: Acknowledge your achievements as you expand your boundaries. Treat yourself, even if you fail epically, at least you tried.
No one ever goes from the comfort zone to a zone of genius and mastery without taking small, measured steps. You can sometimes leap but the likelihood of success is really, really small.
If you want to learn a trick I use to push out of my comfort zone, you can read about how I would dress up like a superhero, and how I still use this concept to tap into my inner superhero today.
For now, I’ll leave you with a little bit of The Karate Kid breaking down the basics in a comfort zone to push into the zone of mastery.