Your comfort zone has been customized and perfected by you, for you. Your investment over time has produced a way of functioning that feels good, right and…well, comfortable. It works just fine…until it doesn’t, and you feel uncomfortable in your comfort zone.

Fear Response

Whenever you are pushed to do something that threatens your comfort zone boundaries, please understand that hidden in your reasons and resistance is fear. “What will I have to give up? What will I have to learn that’s new? How will it actually work? What if it doesn’t work?” These and other questions pound your mind and, rather than engage the situation with curiosity and openness, you protect yourself and your perfectly customized ways.

An Example

These assaults on your comfort zone are everywhere, from the smallest of changes in reporting forms to the largest of changes that will literally redefine your profession. With all these bombardments, your comfort zone boundaries can calcify to become impenetrable walls, all to protect yourself from the fear of “out there.”

For instance, you are likely to be irritated by something as simple as a software update that places the function buttons somewhere else on the screen. You can imagine your fear response when there is a change in the actual software itself. So you hold out for as long as you can, pretending it doesn’t concern you, or that you are an exception, or that the change is misguided.

The World Is Changing

The problem is that the world (technology, expectations, efficiencies, etc.) is different from when you created your comfort zone boundaries. It’s not the same, so you can’t remain the same. The longer you hide in your comfort zone, the more uncomfortable your comfort zone will become.

What have you been resisting? And what will you do? You’ve had to adjust dozens of times throughout your career and besides, you will eventually have to adapt anyway.

I hope that today you are increasingly uncomfortable in your comfort zone and you feel nudged to explore “out there” with a bit more acceptance and courage.