"You need to push yourself. You need to test yourself. You need to get out of your comfort zone." How many times have you heard that? It's conventional wisdom for achieving growth and success…but there's more than one way to do just about anything. So, here's a little unconventional wisdom for you:
Embrace your comfort zone!
Milk it. Master it. Magnify it…for game-changing growth and success.
The comfort zone gets a bad rap. People often confuse it with a little place I call the complacency zone. It's not necessarily a bad place but, life in the complacency zone is life on cruise control. You don't have to do much to keep things going exactly how they are. If conditions don't change too much, complacency might work just fine for some people. But just because something is working just fine today doesn't mean it will work as well tomorrow.
Here's the rub: A downside of the complacency zone is that people tend not to notice when tides start turning. Or they overestimate their ability to sail through it.
In a business, for example, complacency might look like this…
Company executives think their brand is too big to fail. They assume their dominance will maintain their status quo in the market. Because they underestimate small-fry competitors and fail to innovate, they notice too late that their market share is being irrevocably overtaken by smaller companies that have disrupted the space.
On a personal level, coasting in the complacency zone may look like keeping your relationship happy enough at first. But a relationship on autopilot tends to get boring, be taken for granted, and become gradually less capable of fulfilling the partners' changing needs. The relationship eventually may start to slowly slip away.
Wherever you've become complacent…in a relationship, a lifestyle, a job… there's always the risk of your success gradually slipping through your hands before you even notice that it's happening.
Will the real comfort zone please stand up!
On the other hand, the comfort zone (the real comfort zone, that is) is not a place of cruise control or inattention. It's a place of connectedness and confidence. When you're in your comfort zone, you're truly in your element. By leaning into it and working within it, you open up to and connect with a creative stream of consciousness. In other words, you flow. Many people simply call that being in the Zone.
In the Zone, you work your magic—or some might say that the magic works through you. The more you cultivate your interests or talents, the more effortless and second nature things become. This is not to say that the journey to the Zone is without challenges. It takes discipline, focus, and practice. But by using your comfort zone to your advantage, you tend to be more organically incentivized to invest the time and energy required to really take off and produce game-changing results.
So, what does embracing your comfort zone look like in practice? It's a little like pimping your ride. Let's say your comfort zone is making videos while giving in-person talks is outside of your comfort zone:
- Conventional wisdom would tell you to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to give those in-person talks anyway. Ugh. Pushing yourself to do something uncomfortable is a perfectly valid growth path and can lead to great things. Yet, it can potentially make you reluctant to move forward. In some instances, it may turn you off altogether.
- Following the unconventional wisdom of embracing your comfort zone would mean figuring out how to take your videos and run with them. That might mean being more polished, prolific, creative, and consistent with your videos. Or it might mean expanding where and how you distribute your videos. Whatever you do, it would mean making the most of your video mojo and letting it reach full bloom.
This strategy works! Embracing your comfort zone continually unfolds your potential. It helps you get exponentially better at something you're already good at or interested in. You stretch, excel, and evolve at an accelerated rate because you're so into it.
If you have something you're comfortable doing, or excited about doing, then dig in! Educate yourself, train, and practice to keep doing it and keep getting better. Take a class. Read a book. Get a coach, trainer, or mentor to help quicken your growth. (Champions do it. Why shouldn't you?). Do what you need to support your growth and follow your comfort into the Zone.