Your Comfort Zone Plays A Key Role In Your Journey To Success!

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What Is Your Comfort Zone

The discussion about your comfort zone is an important discussion for those who want more out of life, who want to create a better life for themselves.

To explain it, let's start with an image...

In the image the circle shows the things in your comfort zone, things you're comfortable doing. The things outside of the circle are things outside of your comfort zone that you're not comfortable doing.

Your comfort zone is where we all live. It's what we're comfortable doing.

But once you're asked to do something you're not comfortable doing ("step outside of your comfort zone") or there's something you need to do that's outside of your comfort zone, you may experience a fear to do it or even become anxious about the idea of doing it.

This is normal when doing things outside of your comfort zone. This is why 98% of people do everything they can to stay inside of their comfort zone and not stretch out past it. This is also how people become complacent in life.

Your comfort zone, in its purest form, is what you're comfortable doing and things outside of your comfort zone are things you're not comfortable doing. This is a very basic explanation of what your comfort zone is.

The psychological definition of a comfort zone is that it’s a “mental and behavioral state when people perform only a limited range of behaviors and receive satisfying results at the expense of reducing anxiety.”

We all have a comfort zone and each of our comfort zones are different sizes. If you sit home and do absolutely nothing but take care of the house and kids, you're going to have a small comfort zone because you're not doing things outside of your comfort zone to increase it.

If you have a job and are also active in your church you'll have a larger comfort zone because you're doing more things which will increase it.

Let me give you an example. The person who stays home and does nothing may find it hard and uncomfortable to call people who go to her church to invite them to a small group Bible study. Calling strangers or people you don't know very well is just something this person doesn't want to do, and may even have an anxiety attack when sitting down to make those phone calls.

Meanwhile the person who has a job and is active in the church may be completely comfortable making these phone calls. After all, as part of her job she has to call complete strangers about their account so calling strangers who go to her church about a small group Bible study is no big deal to her.

See how this works?

Why It's Important To Your Life & Success

To create success you're going to need to do things which are outside of your comfort zone, things you're not comfortable doing or may even get butterflies in your stomach with just the idea of doing what's being asked of you. 

But if you're going to create the success you desire in your life you're going to have no choice but to do things outside of your comfort zone. It's at this point you have a choice... do you stretch out and do things outside of your comfort zone or do you quit so you don't have to do those things?

Don't underestimate how powerful the comfort zone is. An example is how new sales people who are very uncomfortable making cold-calls will tell you the phone feels like it weighs a ton! To these people, it really does.

But they know that in order to create the leads they need to create the sales they need to create the income they need they must overcome their fear of making cold-calls and just do it. That, or they need to find a new job.

What's cool is if you talk to those new sales people who forced themselves to make the calls, after a week of making calls they found it far easier each day sitting down and doing the cold calls.

Oh sure, they still may not have liked doing cold-calls (most don't) but they weren't having a problem any longer making those calls. They'd just sit down and do what they needed to do to create the sales required by the business.

This is how it's like with most everything outside of your comfort zone. Once you've done it for a little bit it's not so bad anymore, and you've increased the size of your comfort zone.

The larger your comfort zone the more fulfilling your life will be, the more you'll be doing to enjoy life and the more you'll be doing to create your perfect life because you're doing those things which will make a big impact and you're getting more involved with others.

How To Do Things Outside Of Our Comfort Zone and Increase Your Comfort Zone

I remember when my Uncle many years ago asked me to help them move 2000 miles and wanted me to drive his pickup pulling their 5th wheel. Up to this point the biggest thing I had ever pulled was an open bow 18' boat. The 5th wheel was like 35' long! 

Bluntly, I had butterflies in my stomach and was very nervous about doing this. But I did it. What I found very surprising was in less than 10 miles of the 2000 mile trip I was very comfortable pulling the 5th wheel. It was no big deal at all. I even had no problems backing it up likely because I've been backing up boats and trailers for years and understand the basics to it.

What if I hadn't at least tried? I may not have agreed to buying a 28' RV because of being nervous driving such a long vehicle.

Doing one thing outside of your comfort zone to increase the size of your comfort zone adds other alike things into your comfort zone. It's like the sales people making cold-calls... once they got that down and were no longer anxious when needing to make those calls, other things became easier too.

My First Professional Job Forced Me To Go Outside Of My Comfort Zone

I remember my first professional job. It was a management trainee program but you had to start out on the sales team to learn the products and learn how to sell it to people. This way you could train people you hire in your office about the products and then teach them how to sell it.

I had never sold anything before in my life and therefore had absolutely no knowledge or skills in selling. It petrified me!

But I had moved 1,100 miles from home with a limited amount of money in my pocket so I had no choice but to make this work! (This is called having leverage to overcome things you don't want to do or to do things you need to do but are scared to do.)

I had to succeed because there was no way I was going to go back home with my tail between my legs having failed.

I studied very hard. When I wasn't at class learning this new profession I was at my friends house studying! I memorized the presentation and over 60 objections and closes so I didn't need to focus on what I said next, but instead could focus on the body language of the prospect and what the prospect was saying.

Just about everything I was doing was outside of my comfort zone.

In class we listened to Tommy Hopkins Sales Master course. One of the things Tommy said which has always stuck with me is, "Do what you fear most and you'll overcome your fears."

He's right! I have many examples of this throughout my life.

This is where Nike's slogan has become a moto to creating success in life... "Just do it". When you do and if you do it enough you will no longer fear it or have anxiety attacks when faced with doing it.

This is how we grow our comfort zone... "Just do it".

I've also learned how to remove the emotions from doing things. I just don't think about it, or over think it like many do. I just do it.

Emotions lie to you. When you start thinking about what you need to do, those things that outside of your comfort zone you'll immediately start psyching yourself out and creating fear or an anxiety to do it. So don't think about it, just do it.

Once you've done it enough times it will no longer be outside of your comfort zone. It will no longer be a big deal.

Your Comfort Zone Is Not Static. It's Either Growing Or Shrinking!

Your comfort zone is not static. It's either getting larger (increasing, growing) or it's getting smaller (decreasing, shrinking).

If you're not constantly challenging your comfort zone and doing things outside of it to grow your comfort zone, then it's going to decrease. You know this is true when things you once were comfortable doing but haven't done in a long time, and then you have to do those things again and find it hard, uncomfortable doing.

At this point your advantage is that you've done these things before in the past so you know you can do it and know it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it.

You need to constantly do things outside of your comfort zone, or your comfort zone will decrease and life will become harder.

A Mentor or Coach Can Help You Handle Things Outside Of Our Comfort Zone

In the business world we're faced with many things outside of our comfort zone because they're things we've never done before. But when you have a boss and he tells you need to do something the fear of losing your job becomes the greater emotion so you do those things outside of your comfort zone.

When you don't have a boss because you're building your own business so you're the boss, the work around to this is to have a mentor or coach who you're accountable to and who will keep you on course to include helping you to do those things you really don't want to do (because they're outside of your comfort zone).

Over the years I've done live training courses. In the second one I started offering coaching and saw a significant difference in both how quickly people were up and running and making money, and how successful they became. Those who got the coaching statistically did far better and did it faster.

This is why we offer coaching here at FHB... it offers so many advantages to those who have purchased our courses to include helping them work through those things they're uncomfortable doing.

It's an option should you need it.

Why It's Important To Increase Your Comfort Zone

Staying within your comfort zone is almost equal to avoiding risks, not taking full advantage of life and not doing those things which will increase the quality of your life. Taking risks is important if you're going to create financial success in your life.

Per Psychology Today...

Life provides incredible possibilities, but you can’t take advantage of them without facing pain.

• If you can’t tolerate pain, you can’t be fully alive. There are many examples of this.
• If you’re shy and avoid people, you lose the vitality that comes with a sense of community.
• If you’re creative but can’t tolerate criticism, you’ll never reach people who could appreciate (and fund) your work.
• If you’re a leader and can’t confront or set limits with people, no one will follow you.

By staying in your Comfort Zone you end up relinquishing your most cherished dreams and aspirations.

But the part of us that avoids pain is completely irrational. It lives in a primitive, unconscious world where all pain—even pain that would be good for us—triggers the same fear: “I’m going to die!” It clings to the Comfort Zone as if its life depended on it.

Here Are A Few Ways To Get Outside Of Your Comfort Zone And Increase Your Comfort Zone...

We've already talked about a few ways to go beyond your comfort zone which will increase your comfort zone. Discussed already is to let go of your emotions, and then "just do it".

We also discussed how by just doing it, after a short period of time it becomes far easier, it's no big deal.

We've also discussed how a boss can encourage people to do things outside of their comfort zone by holding their job over their head. Then we discussed how coaching or a mentor can help the home business owner work through those things outside of his or her comfort zone.

Unfortunately there will still be those who are not able to do key things outside of their comfort zone. Making those sales phone calls and many other things are just too difficult to do, they just can't do it.

This is when you just hope some bad happens to kick them in the ass. Let me explain because I wouldn't wish anything bad on anyone so let me explain what I mean here... 

Often It Takes Extreme Leverage To Force Us Out Of Our Comfort Zone

Another thing we hear about all of the time is how something bad happened to someone and then how they turned things around in their life because of what happened.

For example, look at all of the stories of people who were faced with a bad financial thing which brought out the warrior in these people and they start doing things they never would've or could've done before.

Picture this. Inflation continues to grow, everything is costing more money, you're using credit cards to help you get through each month and then pretty soon you're no longer able to make your house payments which is your biggest bill. Eventually the bank forecloses on your home. Things just got really ugly!

You don't want to lose the house you and your spouse bought together to be your forever home, where you've been raising your kids and is the only home your kids have ever known. You'll do anything to save it!

At this point the pain of losing your home becomes greater than going outside of your comfort zone and doing things you're not comfortable doing.

It's from these times we hear how someone about ready to lose their home or some other tragedy turned everything around and went from almost being homeless to becoming a millionaire.

The pain of loss was greater than going outside of their comfort zone which became the leverage they needed to turn their lives around.

Why does it take a tragedy like this to get people to take the action necessary to create the life they desire, to take control over their finances, to do things to improve the quality of their life?

It's the same with improving their health. They get told by their doctor that if they don't start exercising and eating right they're going to die an early death because they've become obese and are completely out of shape.

They don't want to die so they use this leverage to do what they should've been doing all of their life... exercising and eating healthy.

Far better would be to take control over your life, your finances and your health before a tragedy occurs.

I hope this helped you to understand those anxieties you get when faced with doing things you're not comfortable doing, and helped you to realize those anxious feelings will go away relatively quickly once you start doing those things.

Those anxious feelings are short lived, but the results you gain by going outside of your comfort zone and doing those things which can increase the quality of your life could be benefits you gain for the rest of your life.

Short term pain for long term gain!

What are you going to do now? How about you go create your perfect life! We're here to help you so don't think you need to go at alone.

God speed....