Stepping out of your comfort zone can build confidence, and even if you have a lot of self confidence, you may still feel discomfort every time you step outside of your comfort zone.
What is your comfort zone?
Your comfort zone is a psychological state where you feel at ease when making certain choices. You’re not being tested by those choices, and they feel comfortable and safe.
To give you a visual, if you look at the image, you will see a red circle. This is represents your comfort zone. Inside that circle is a bunch of little dots.
Those dots are your choices. Whenever you make a choice (represented by the yellow dot) that sits within the red circle, you are staying within your comfort zone.
Most comfort zone choices are made without even a second thought. You’ve probably made that same choice a gazillion times in the past, so it’s no issue for you to make choice after choice from within that red circle.
What’s wrong with staying in my comfort zone?
Your life right this second is a reflection of the choices you have made, and therefore what’s in the red circle. It’s a culmination of every single choice you’ve ever made, that have led you to where you are right now.
If you don’t like some aspects of your life, then staying inside your comfort zone is going to keep you stuck and you will keep getting what you’ve always got!
Playing it safe might feel comfortable, but over the long term, you’re going to get bored and frustrated, and possibley cranky at yourself for not moving forward in your life! Not only that but staying inside your comfort zone does very little for your self confidence!
What happens when you step outside of your comfort zone?
Stepping outside of your comfort zone can feel a bit scary, depending on how far out you step! For many people, that first step will need to be a teeny tiny baby step, and that’s perfectly ok!
Looking at the image here, you will see a green circle which represents how far you’re able to stretch outside of your comfort zone without completely freaking out! The little yellow dot represents a possible new choice you could make within that green circle.
When you make that choice, it’s going to feel uncomfortable, a bit yukky, or even terrifying! For somebody who’s struggling to step outside of their comfort zone, I would actually recommend that they make a new choice that sits much closer to the red circle than in the example I’ve given. This is because the closer to the red circle your choice sits, the less discomfort you will feel.
What happens when you stay outside of your comfort zone?
Stepping out of your comfort zone and staying out, is where things get very cool! When you start making new choices which sit outside of your comfort zone, you’re going to feel more comfortable with those choices every time you make them. It’s a gradual process, but before long, you’re not even going to think twice about making that choice again.
It’s kind of like when you’re learning to drive. At first, it feels like a big step outside of your comfort zone, right? But over time, after many hours of driving, it becomes second nature. So what was originally inside your green circle but outside of the red circle, now sits inside the red circle, because driving has become a part of your comfort zone!
In the image here, you can see that red and green circles in the image have actually moved and your little yellow dot (your choice to learn to drive) stayed still. Because the red and green circles moved to accommodate your new choices, your little yellow dot now sits inside the red circle! This is your new comfort zone!
Isn’t that awesome???
What happens when you step outside the green circle?
What often happens when somebody steps outside of the green circle, or outside of what they’re
psychologically able to handle, is that they’ll bounce straight back into the red circle as quickly as they can, because the discomfort of being so far away from their comfort zone may become too much for them. There may be some exceptions, but if you’re somebody who’s wanting to build your confidence and make new, positive choices in your life, then I suggest that you make choices from within that green circle!
This is really an exercise in understanding what your limits are, and how far you’re prepared to stretch before you snap!
Some people can take huge leaps outside of their comfort zones and they’ll be fine. Others can only take little baby steps at first. Neither one is better or worse than the other. We are all individuals, and we must do what feels more comfortable for us.
How stepping out of your comfort zone can build confidence
Stepping out of your comfort zone in my experience, is one of the best ways to build confidence. When you take those steps ouside of your comfort zone and into discomfort, you push through that and you come out the other side feeling comfortable with your new choices, you will feel a sense of accomplishment.
I see this with my clients every day! They hold themselves back, sometimes for years! Then with my support they start to make those new choices, and as their confidence builds, they make more new choices, then more again! It’s so wonderful to see!
What’s next?
Here’s a little exercise you could do to take some baby steps outside of your comfort zone:
- Review all of the choices you currently make on a day to day basis.
- Think of a new choice you could make which takes you a teeny tiny bit outside of the red circle and into the green circle and toward an intention you would like to achieve.
- Make that new choice and notice how you feel.
- Celebrate the fact that you made that choice!
- Keep making that choice, and after three weeks, see how you feel.
What you will find is that you will feel a whole lot better about making that choice every time you do so!
Future readings
As part of the Soul Realignment readings that I conduct, I include an aspect of “future reading”, and we discuss any new choices you could make which sit outside of the red circle but within the green circle.
What I then do is determine the likelihood of whether that new choice is going to take you toward your intention or away from it.
There’s a whole lot more to the future reading, but what I love about it is that it gives you a great deal of comfort around making your new choices, and you’re less worried that the choice will be a wrong one!
I talk about this process and how it works on my other website at FindMySparkle.com if you’d like to take a look! Of course, if you have any questions, please reach out!
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