Holding up a mirror – Life begins at the edge of your COMFORT ZONE

How time fly’s when you’re having fun!  This week we complete our 7-month experiential Leadership Development Programme, our 11th cohort now, which is based on a mix of outdoor and indoor experiences with 1:1 coaching.

The leaders from businesses across Yorkshire have joined us on a monthly basis and had so many amazing experiences and challenges throughout the programme.  They have found themselves in situations that have really held a mirror up to themselves and their leadership styles. We have challenged them to be brave and step outside their comfort zones and into their learning zones.

Watching them willingly engage in activities which at times have pushed them to their limits and observing how they have developed as a strong team leading and supporting each other to overcome the barriers they have faced has really made us think about comfort zones and what it means to live in your comfort zone?

It seems that living in your comfort zone is all about doing what is safe and easy where you know what the outcome will be. It means that you are afraid to take risks and do something that scares you or to try something that you do not know what the outcome will be.  It is a lovely safe and secure place to be.  We can perform well, have established relationships, and rarely feel out of our depth.  However, by living in our comfort zone we close our doors to change and progress. Fearing the discomfort that change will bring in our life leads to boredom and discontentment which in turn affects motivation and enthusiasm and results in a negative mindset.  When you are in your comfort zone, you are part of a set of people who just wait for things to happen.

If you remain in your comfort zone and keep hoping, wishing, and dreaming of a better life, you will never know what you can achieve and never achieve your full potential.

What happens when you step outside your comfort zone?

If we feel the fear and do it anyway and leave our comfort zones, we step into the unknown and into learning.  By doing this we allow ourselves to explore new things, we seek out opportunities, pursue our dreams, face our fears and thus we develop and grow, we become a better version of ourselves.

Stepping out of your comfort zone means you’re moving into uncharted territory. You’re trying things that you’ve never tried before and learning things you’ve never learned before.  We find out a lot about ourselves when we take risks and challenge ourselves. We discover what makes us tick and begin to see our true self and in the case of our participants on the Leadership Development Programme we start to know what we are capable of and become confident, inspiring and authentic leaders.

As the Programme comes to an end for this wonderful cohort, we genuinely feel sad, as they have been such an amazing group to work with, develop and coach.

And for us, it really has been a privilege over the last few months to watch each and every one of them embracing stepping out of their comfort zone into the learning zone and into their growth zone.  Month after month we observe them challenge themselves in new and unfamiliar surroundings and then taking this learning into their day-to-day work, pushing boundaries, challenging the status quo, daring to ask for feedback and have honest conversations.  As a result, we are seeing their confidence and self-belief grow.  They are taking control of situations, sourcing opportunities, and making things happen! They all felt the fear (each a different fear) and did it anyway!

How can we make that first step out of our comfort zone?

As we go through life we all develop habits and these of course can be good or bad but living outside your comfort zone is about breaking those habits and challenging the way you think and the things you do.

We are often held back in our zone of comfort because of fear and facing that fear head on all at once might be overwhelming but we can all take small steps which allows us to stretch our comfort zone and slowly makes it less uncomfortable and frightening.

Remember that exploring new areas of life, making new habits, learning new skills, seeking more knowledge, meeting new people, doing new things – all of this ignites the spark of life and makes you feel alive. And the first step to change in your circumstances is a change from within you – we cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are. We can only change our life, if we are brave enough to be out of our comfort zone.

Here are 10  ideas to get you started:

• Become aware of what’s outside of your comfort zone
• Change up your routine – do everyday things differently
• Expand your professional skillset
• Get creative
• Introduce yourself to someone new
• Have some open and honest conversations with the people around you
• Learn some new skills
• Read something different
• Challenge yourself to do one random thing a day
• Stop making excuses

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

Benjamin Franklin

If you’re interested in finding out more about how we can help you and your teams step out from their comfort zones or on our Leadership Development Programme, then call us on 01904 628838 or email us info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com and we would be happy to help.