How often do you challenge the Pseudo comfort of your Comfort zone ?

One of the things that have always intrigued me is why majority of the human beings (including me!) just love being in their Comfort zones. Consider a few examples-

- In front of a large audience, if one was asked to give an extempore presentation- wouldn’t one's feet tremble and the heart skip a beat?
- If one is always habitual of sitting on the back seat of the car is suddenly asked to drive the vehicle (of course one has to know the driving), wouldn’t you take up the driver's seat with a great deal of anxiety if you are not used to driving so much on busy roads.
- Your employer asks you to pass on a bad news about pink slip to an employee.
- You are given a project for which expect the out to be delivered at a very short time.

There can be numerous such examples in our lives when we unwillingly are "asked" to do something that we think is beyond our "scope of existence". The key element here is that be in our Jobs or day-to-day lives outside of Jobs we tend to define a certain scope of existence. If any event in our lives falls under this scope, we execute it with certain comfort. If anything goes beyond this scope, normally we tend to feel discomfort, we feel anxious, and there may be other visible indications each amounting to discomfort. The general tendency exhibited by human beings is to avoid this feeling altogether. The question that arises is- Is it right to avoid this feeling ?

I was recently reading a ebook (Titled as "Dare to Dream") by Anthony Fernando , there was a mention of Comfort zone and its finer points. With due credit to the author, i am sharing a few key points that this article touches.

Everything you want in life is waiting for you outside of your comfort zone.

When we stay safe inside our comfort zones, we limit ourselves to experiencing the things that are already part of our life.

The only way to change your circumstances is to venture out of your comfort zone into a Possibility zone, because it is here that you will find everything you have ever wanted.

The only way to expand your comfort zone is to bite the bullet and step out into the possibility zone.
Initially this can be uncomfortable but with repeated effort, your comfort zone will slowly expand to include the things that you really want from life.


To me the above are the real gems of the wisdom. Whenever we are faced with any unfamiliar situation at work or in life usually that very situation tend to push us outside our self defined Comfort zone. And generally our mind treats getting out of Comfort zone as something unpleasant and something that it does not have natural motivation for. From what I know, it is just natural for the human beings to live life in set patterns. A normal human being usually favors a certain predictability in life in a way sequence of events shapes up. E.g. One generally tend to expect praises from the superiors and if some situation leads to reprimands, then that’s kind of breaking the set pattern that one had expected for one self.

The journey towards something meaningful, towards achieving one’s goals start with discomfort, with pains of trying something new despite hiccups, glitches or difficulties. Rather than running away from the discomfort the real courage lies in facing it upfront, quell the fear, defeating all the apprehensions. Even if the initial results of leaving your comfort zone aren’t favorable, I think that’s still better than someone willing to be in its own comfort zone. That discomfort is certainly the first step towards achieving the intended goals. I the true sense, the comforts brought forward by the Comfort zone as Pseudo comforts that keep us in illusion and hamper us from achieving our true worth.

Do you have any stories to share across regarding breaking your comfort zones and achieving something that even surprised you ? Do share it across!

Well, I didn’t initially intend this post to be as much philosophical as its eventually turned out. But my experience tells me that its an important enough topic to be deserving a rightful mention.