When you do things that challenge you, taking you outside of the familiar, you change. You may experience uncertainty, discomfort, excitement, curiosity, stress. None of these sensations are necessarily bad; it all depends on how you feel about them. If you feel energized and motivated, then they are positive emotions. On the other hand, if you feel unmanageable levels of stress or anxiety, it’s unhelpful and you may need to practice self-care and push yourself less.
Benefits to Going Outside Your Comfort Zone
There are many benefits to acting outside your comfort zone, including:
- Discover new interests and strengths.
- Build new neural pathways in your brain.
- Build mental resilience.
- Develop self-confidence and trust in your abilities to learn and grow.
- Make the changes that you desire to build the life that you want.
- Learn from failure and build the capacity for perseverance to meet your goals.
- Choose enthusiam and excitement for and about life.
What’s something new that you’ll try this year? Is it going to be related to your career, health, finances, lifestyle, hobbies, or relationships?
Although there was a whole season focused on self-acceptance, it’s still something that takes intention and practice on my part. One place where this shows up is in relationships. The more I judge and criticize myself, the less open and accepting I am of others. Self-acceptance helps me show up wholeheartedly in my relationships. I don’t have to be perfect and can explore outside my comfort zone.
When I started Changes Big and Small, I was outside of my comfort zone. I was worried about getting guests, structuring interviews, keeping a weekly podcast release schedule, etc. However, by producing the podcast, I developed new skills and discovered a new way to channel my sage/educator tendencies. I find it exciting to learn something new, something I’ve never tried before.
I don’t create New Year’s resolutions but for the next few months, I’m going to focus on building and strengthening my close relationships. This will be outside of my comfort zone because I tend to take my cues from the other person rather than stating and pursuing what I want.
9 Ways to Get outside your comfort zone in relationships
- Have a difficult conversation or a revealing conversation with someone you care about.
- Ask someone out who you’ve been wanting to spend time with, either as a friend or as a love interest.
- Try online dating, state what you’re looking for, and enjoy spending time with some people on your wavelength, whether or not it leads to a relationship.
- Tell a friend what they mean to you, honestly and clearly, even if it scares you.
- Set boundaries in your relationships. Remember that a boundary is a decision about how you will act in situations that are outside your comfort zone. It doesn’t dictate how the other person will behave.
- Work/collaborate with a colleague that you don’t normally work with.
- Join a new social group and be open to making new friends there.
- Say yes more often to invitations and offer them more often.
- Send letters of gratitude to the people who have impacted your life.
These are all things that I’m working on over the next few months.
Bloganuary Challenge
The daily prompt for today, January 3, for the Bloganuary challenge is “Write about the last time you left your comfort zone.” You can still join the challenge.
