All your growth lies outside your comfort zone!
Think about that for a minute.
If you want to achieve anything you have to be prepared to go where you have never been before.
We all have our comfort zones, in fact we have them for each and every part of our lives, home, work, friends, self image, ability, every part of our life comes with it a view in our own minds of where we feel comfortable.
Outside of that we are in uncharted territory and that the area we feel fear.
Fear, or as I prefer it a Fantasied Event Appearing Real, is something we all have to confront if we are to get more from life. Fear takes place in our minds and almost all of what we fear never happens. Its the fantasy of it that we get wound up in. Its so real in our minds that it gives us physiological symptoms, sweating, breathing faster and the inability to think logically. But in reality nothing is generally actually happening.
Of course if you are being chased by a bear then fears a great tool, your adrenalin goes way-up and you suddenly get a great boost of energy, quite useful in the circumstances. But how useful is that when you are asked to get up on stage and speak to 200 people, you aren't going anywhere, yet all the same symptoms are there with you.
If you overcome the feelings of fear, look at the benefits. By going where you have never been before you get a sense of super self achievement. “I didn't realise I could do that and it wasn't as bad as I thought” is a typical reaction and what comes with that is the realisation that you can do more than you first thought.
So its the same in growth. Setting yourself unrealistic goals may at first seem, well, unrealistic because your mind does not allow you to automatically think outside of your comfort zone. It wants to keep you safe, safe from harm and safe from fear of harm , which to your mind are the same thing. Thats why it creates those fear based feelings.
Therefore to grow you need to learn to override your subconscious programming and first start to set goals that mean something to you but are outside of your comfort zone. Then and only then can you begin to properly grow.
Then of course you have to do something about them and that also involves doing things outside your comfort zones
Pete Gable is a Hypnotherapist, Trainer, Coach and Author of “Insidious” available on Amazon and Smashwords. He helps people make positive changes in their life.
