Expanding your comfort zone

By | January 14, 2014

When you feel good, you do good. It is no secret that our best, most-effective work is done when we’re enjoying the process but how do we get there? How to find that comfort zone where life just flows, your heart and head are in sync, and you can do your best work? I recently realized that you don’t FIND your comfort zone, you create it. Growth is all about expanding your current comfort zone.

It’s not that I was hung over or just lazing through the first fortnight of the New Year, but unlike most around me, I did not start anything new. Even though I don’t care much about the new-year-new-starts formula, January is the time when a lot of us revisit our plans and set new personal and professional goals.

If you don’t, it feels as if you’re going to be left behind.

Your comfort zone

However, your choices are not about everybody, they are about YOU. I didn’t start the early morning workout this time because it was freezing outside, and having been in good shape most of last year, I could afford to lie in the first week of the New Year without having to feel guilty about it.

Work has also seen my more disciplined side in the past two months, so I didn’t feel the need to make any major changes there.

But the fact is, even if I had to go running at 5 in the morning or dedicate 14 hours to my current work, I wouldn’t consider it a challenge. I’ve done it before. These activities were well within my comfort zone.

Doing it late is better than doing it against your will. Whether it is working out, writing, coding, learning something new, I always get the best results when I’m not pressed for the outcome but am just enjoying the process.

Whether you are lazy, hardworking, moody or somewhere still confused—don’t let the world and its standards push you too hard. Give yourself some time, keep slowly working towards your goals, and you’ll end up creating the place that feels comfortable.  

Effective work can only be done by people who are operating in their comfort zone but every accomplishment is at first going to feel like a struggle. It will need you to get out of set patterns and expand your comfort zone.

Expanding your comfort zone

If you’ve ever been to a gym, you’d know that even the growth of a muscle is a painful process.

You have to work through the difficult days that you’re not quite your best self. It’s human to feel tense, edgy, and restless while you’re finding your way through an uncertain situation.

We go through months and years of discomfort and difficulties for the privilege of finding that comfort zone, where we can spend some time being easy and still performing optimally. Even then, we don’t get to stay there forever. We have to move on, jump to the next challenge, expand our comfort zone again because that’s how we grow and become worthy of the next accomplishment.

You have to be continually expanding your comfort zone by going through the grinder, so you can give your best to whatever you do.