Breaking Through
Let’s talk about the danger of too much comfort.
The tell-tell signs you're stuck in your comfort zone:
You avoid new challenges, preferring predictability.
Delaying your goals because “the timing isn’t right.”
Fear of failure stops you completely.
You have no ambitions for your future and chase short-term amusement.
On the topic of mind, Boredom. I talked a lot about slowing down, embracing stillness, and seeking a peaceful state of mind without hustle. I focused on the benefits of boredom, utilizing it imaginatively.
Now, I want to share a different BUT important perspective. This is not about retracting those statements but diving a bit deeper — finding boredom’s limits and readying yourself for the moments when you’re too comfortable to identify so.
The comfort zone is problematic and tricky, hiding behind boredom's back. They are, in fact, very close friends.
Boredom, as I previously wrote, can be a good healer for living a slower, more creative lifestyle — if exercised correctly.
Boredom is your brain telling you it's time to channel your energy. Born from anxiety, lack of concentration, and an absence of self-control. It is the opportunity for reflection, a time to consider why this feeling has stirred.
It is important to find your balance. Know when your body and mind need healing, when you need to be bored. And know when it is time for change, for growth, and for learning. Most will take the easy route, choosing not to run towards reflection, but instead chase short-term amusement, which will ultimately lead them to a very small space, one that has no red exit sign glowing bright to indicate the importance of breaking free, called … dun dun dun … the comfort zone. Was that fun?
The comfort zone, stability in its name, so why not sit back and relax, right? But it's not all that comforting, really.
Comfort is entangling, netting you in to provoke every boundary you’ve set. It is dulling your self-reliance, convincing you of its protection, and disconnecting you from fear, growth, and a well-lived life…
Our brains were developed around survival. It’s easy to survive when you're comfortable; uncertainty will always feel risky, but a life lived comfortably is predictable and boring.
A life lived with discomfort is ambitious and purposeful. Everything worth living for is on the other side of discomfort. A new job interview, a shift in your routine, starting a business, taking a solo adventure, or reconnecting with an old friend, taking a dance class, a cooking class, or a workout class, writing a book, or a blog…
It all starts with the way you think, the way you have structured your mind. Are you focused on your present, looking forward to your future? Or are you cemented in the past, frozen to the one path you walked along years ago, bound to those feelings and/or mistakes?
We have all been there; acceptance is awfully frightening. The moment you accept the past, accepting what cannot be changed, THAT is when the change begins.
Make yourself uncomfortable, savor the difficulty, and watch how it will amplify the life around you. A smooth escape from your comfort zone is unlikely; it will be full of rejection, embarrassment, doubt, the flooding feelings of anxiety, and fear.
Fear halts us all, keeping us from our fullest potential. And it begins with the smaller steps. The bigger picture is never painted without that first brush stroke. An artist doesn’t start their career with murals; a writer doesn’t start their career with a novel. They launch with the smaller canvas, the shorter writing practices, with failure upon failure along the way.
A goal set high is exciting and inspiring; you know what you want. But it needs to be broken into smaller, realistic steps.
Challenge your fear into motivation — reframing each setback as a lesson learned and progress made.
Every one of those feelings brings expansion.
Welcome the change.
Welcome the fear.
Welcome the discomfort.
It is opportunity.
Now, let's make this very, very clear: I am not an expert. I am talking straight out of my a*s with no previous research, spoken strictly from personal experience. If you have diverse experiences and/or opinions on this or any topic I have covered, please share them with me on my chat page. I would love to gain a different perspective!
Still Life: Flowers in Vase; Blue Flowers by Maggie Laubser, oil on canvas (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
