Everyone has a zone in which they are not moving forward with their lives.

It’s a zone where you’re capable of doing things at a ‘mediocre’ level and you can stay in this zone comfortably. When I say a ‘comfort zone’ I mean a stage in your life where you’ve become lazy and you’ve accepted things the way they are.

You’ve stopped moving forward and experiencing new things, and instead you’re quite happy just sitting in the same place, not moving forward. Some would argue that this is a ‘safe way’ to play the game of life, but I’m going to explain why this is a long way from the truth.

I’ll start by saying that both fear and security are illusions. THEY DON’T EXIST.

Realizing this should put what I’m about to say in perspective. Let’s look at two people who approach life very differently, and then we’ll explore why you should identify your comfort zone – The area which you’ve let yourself get trapped in – And escape.

Person 1 – This is a person who is going through life in a ‘good boy’ sort of way. He has a job, pays his taxes and pays his bills. He has always been very interested in playing the violin, but he’s always been scared to perform in front of people, and so he’s stopped trying to improve on the instrument, and instead has a job in an office where he types reports up for people all day. He makes just enough money to pay the bills (J.O.B = Just Over Broke) but not much more. He’s stuck in a ‘comfort zone’ and he never tries anything new.

And now we look at person 2. Try and notice where they’re different. It’s pretty obvious.

Person 2 – This person has a passion for rock climbing. He absolutely loves the sport, and he decided that all he wants to do with his life is to just progress with rock climbing. He was originally scared of climbing on an open rock face, but he kept pushing himself and now he’s overcome his fear of being on the open rock face and regularly does ascents in record time. He’s genuinely enjoying his life. He makes a little bit of money by teaching people to rock climb on his website and selling ebooks about the subject. He ALWAYS pushes himself to do something harder, bigger and more challenging.

A bit of a difference, right?

The first person is limited by .. Well.. By themselves. He stops himself from trying to do anything harder because he’s stuck in a ‘safe job’ and doesn’t want to do anything risky.

The fact of the matter is, life is going to be just as dangerous and risky if you take the ‘easy option’ and just stay in your comfort zone. Life begins outside of your comfort zone, and you can’t just live your life trapped by some fear or by what people say you should be doing. You should be doing whatever it is that you enjoy doing.

You could walk down the road, slip or lose your balance, and fall into the road, into the path of an oncoming car. That could kill you! Just from walking down the road, and this risk is there every time you walk down the road, every day. It’s a not reason not to walk down the road though, is it?

Your comfort zone

The same could be said of your dreams, and your hopes/aspirations for life. If you WANT something, don’t let stupid fears or peoples opinions get in the way, just go and get it, or go and do it. Whatever you want to do, you can make a living from it if you try hard enough, it’s just a matter of finding something you enjoy doing, and then doing a lot of it.

Why Life begins outside your comfort zone..

When we get stuck in a comfort zone, we lose what makes us human and we stop pushing ourselves. We stop growing, stretching and expanding our experiences and we just stagnate. We fester in our comfort-ability and we might as well be dead already! When you stop learning growing and improving yourself you’re committing slow suicide.

Do something every day that makes you feel uncomfortable

Here is my invitation to you. Every day, do one little thing that you don’t feel comfortable doing. Now, I’m not talking about stupid things like sitting on a cactus or jumping off a bridge, I mean things that would probably advance your skills, abilities and experiences but that you’ve been too scared to do. This is different for everyone.

 

For some people, it might mean starting a YouTube channel, if they’ve been camera shy in the past. It might mean doing a bungee jump, or speaking to that girl you’ve been eying up on the train for the last month.

Whatever it is, go and fucking do it, because looking back and saying ‘Wow that was a great day’ is much better than saying ‘I wonder what might have been..