What Works: Stepping outside of your comfort zone
Submitted by editor on Mon, 06/09/2014 - 8:43am
Thomas Jefferson said, “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” If you want to become known in the community, you must do something to become visible to those who are involved.
If you want to lose weight, you must shift your attitude and activities to create the change. If you want to make more money in business, you must adjust what you are doing (even if it’s finding a way to clone existing customers and magnify existing success). The point is you must do something you have never done before. This involves feeling a little bit of something icky — fear.
When we fear, we rely on False Evidence Appearing Real to guide our decisions. Fear is healthy and assumptions protect us. However, when those things hinder us from growth, they hurt us. When that tight feeling in our chests hold us back from new education opportunities, new social circles, new experiences, new thoughts, we begin to live our lives in a self-created bubble of fear.
I am always educating myself on new ways of thought. This week, I am wrapping up a HarvardX class on how to identify, challenge, and reverse assumptions. It’s eye opening. I have been living in fear. I will whole-heartedly admit that. Challenged by the events of my past, I have applied the past to the present and I have set up an electric safety fence. That comfort zone is so protected by my safety fence that, if something makes me feel icky, I electrocute it. I challenge it to the point where a deadline passes and the opportunity is gone. I ignore the sizzling and wait for the issue to die. Or, and here’s the fun one, I ram the person, place, thing, or idea into the fence repeatedly and forcefully so I can kill it and walk away. It’s uncomfortable. I can’t deal with it. Besides, it hasn’t worked in the past, so why will it work today? The excuses line up like sentinels. I think it protects me. Sometimes it does. Most times, I’m cheating myself out of life.
Is my fence always on? No! In fact, sometimes I do a great job of turning it off. When I do, I find that I often surprise myself. I usually say something like “wow, that wasn’t that bad” or better “that was a fantastic experience. Let’s do it again!” I’ve had a few of these moments over the past couple of weeks. Turning off the fence is scary, but the results are often rewarding if I turn off the fence at the right time for the right reason.
I’m not going to ask you to reveal your electric fence. But I want you to think about it. What are you keeping out based on fear and assumptions? What could you shift, just one little thing, to put a pinky toe outside of your comfort zone? Have you been successful in the past in stepping outside of your comfy space and want to share your story? The floor is yours, Carson City.
ABOUT DIANE HANSEN
Diane Hansen is the Chief Inspiration Officer of What Works Coaching, a coaching firm that has helped people worldwide with their businesses, careers, mindsets, and profit margins. She brings to Carson City more than 17 years of experience with a wide array of clients, ranging from top corporations, motivated entrepreneurs and individuals hungry for a fresh start. Her column appears every Monday on Carson Now.
