Climbing out of Your Comfort Zone
By Lauren Jones
There is a reason why people are fearful of leaving their comfort zone: because it guarantees change! It is normal to be scared of change, but that apprehensive feeling will hold you back in the long run.
I am an advocate for trying new/scary things in order to prove to myself that I am capable of far more than I believe. In previous years, I felt like I was hushing the voices of my dreams to avoid disappointing myself, when in reality I was letting myself down by limiting the possibilities of my future. By starting to take more risks I boosted my confidence and started to think bigger for myself.
Taking risks always brings unavoidable thoughts: What if it goes horribly wrong? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I fail? It is necessary to rewire your brain to replace those thoughts with: What if it turns out better than I originally thought? What if this leads me to the path I am meant to take? What if I make myself immensely proud? I changed my thought process from being scared of change to embracing it along with the possibilities and excitement it can bring for me.
My favorite example of this is going skydiving. It had been on my bucket list for most of my life, but my primary reason for participating in this daunting activity was to prove to myself that I was ready for the unknowns of college. I thought that if I did the scariest thing that I could think of, any other challenge I would face in my future would seem incomparable. In other words, if I could be fearless and jump out of a plane, how could anything else be so bad? Sure enough, this once in a lifetime experience was a pinnacle in my self growth, as it invigorated and inspired me to take on the next chapter of my life.
Now, I am not saying that you need to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane to get comfortable with risk taking (it was helpful though!). Some other examples of getting out of my comfort zone include adding an economics minor, joining a sorority, and participating in a spring internship. In each of these experiences, the beginning stages felt unfamiliar and confusing. But as I have come to realize, it is within this phase that you learn the most about yourself and your potential. It was uncomfortable to try new economics courses and be one of the few (if not the only) communication major in the room. It was uncomfortable to rush a sorority as a sophomore in an environment with predominantly freshmen. It was uncomfortable to leave my everyday campus life and travel alone to a different town for my internship. Yet, each of these experiences pushed me to a different level of confidence and have, in turn, given me an abundance of self-fulfillment and joy. If they were easy, they wouldn’t have taught me anything.
My philosophy is that I would rather push myself to be uncomfortable for a little while in order to see the depths of my capabilities rather than look back and regret chances I didn’t take. Even if things don’t work out the way you anticipated, then you are able to know that it wasn’t meant to be and you can move onto the next best thing instead of spending your whole life wondering. You will still earn the respect of yourself and others because you had the courage to put yourself out there.
Your comfort zone will remain comfortable until it begins to hold you back. Doing the same old things every day will get boring pretty fast. Once you convince yourself to enjoy the unfamiliar and the unknown, you will notice an ignition of beautiful change within yourself. Maybe that sense of adrenaline will become your new favorite feeling like it did for me!
It is a climb to begin the process of getting out of your comfort zone. Nobody said it was easy. However, if you never get out of your comfort zone, you will never grow. The first step is to try something small and go from there. When reading this, did something come to your mind that you have been wanting to do/try for a while? Take the leap– you will thank yourself for it later.
