Expand Your Comfort Zone
SUMMARY
Do you feel stuck doing the same old behaviour all the time, sticking to that area that you feel comfortable with, or do you take risks and try new things so that you can get different results?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around changing behaviour so that we can become who we need to become to get the results that we want in 2021 and beyond by helping you to expand your comfort zone.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Do you feel stuck doing the same old behaviour all the time, sticking to that area that you feel comfortable with, or do you take risks and try new things so that you can get different results?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around changing behaviour so that we can become who we need to become to get the results that we want in 2021 and beyond by helping you to expand your comfort zone.
You and I both heard it many times before where someone will say something like, "The magic is outside your comfort zone." And you're thinking, "Well, no, it's not. That is uncomfortable, and there's nothing magic about that." The challenge that I see time and time again is that people are encouraged to step outside what's comfortable. And I want to challenge that today because there are a couple of things I see flawed in that approach.
The first thing is that when we step outside what's comfortable, it's exactly that — it's uncomfortable. It goes outside what is our comfort zone and all those universal fears come into play. The second flaw is that when we step outside our comfort zone, we also have the ability to step back in. So, it becomes a game. And when we do that, our brain leaves room for us to fail.
So, what I want to do is empower you with just a very short message today. Instead of stepping outside your comfort zone, what I'd like you to do is think of a big, strong, tall, round tree with expanding rings. A tree does not get its strength by its height. It gets its strength by its width and it gets its foundation in the roots. We expand our comfort zone — we're not going in and out of it, we're just making it bigger and making more things comfortable.
So to do that, we need to use a different language. The things that are inside your comfort zone are not easy — they're just familiar. The things that are outside your comfort zone are not hard — perhaps they're just unfamiliar. Just like the things that are now comfortable that weren't when you first started doing them, those things outside your comfort zone can become comfortable as well. And to do that, we do them over and over again.
What I'd love you to do for this week is find one thing that you've been putting off, one thing that was on your list of procrastinators, and I want you to step up and challenge yourself and trust yourself and do those things until they become familiar, and therefore, they're in your comfort zone.
Being comfortable is not really what we're looking to do. Growing ourselves and becoming the person that we need to become so that we can do the things we need to do to have the results that we want to have is what we're all about.
Well, that's it from me for another week. I'll see you then.
