The Uncomfortable Truth - how the comfort zone limits your growth

This is the first of three articles about a particular model of human development.  I use it a lot in my work and it always seems to be useful for people looking for lasting, meaningful change.  It explains feelings like being trapped or 'stuck in a rut', or those times when we're unwilling to risk rocking the boat on a life that isn't ideal, but isn't terrible either.And it offers you a way forward.

It turns out that a lot of our personal worries and anxieties and based on a cultural misunderstanding about safety, risk and adventure.  

The Comfort Zone

Today, everyone knows the phrase "comfort zone".  It tends to conjure up images of a warm, safe place where we're unhurried, unpressured and free to take things at our own pace.  A great many people spend their lives searching for the comfort zone, or fighting to stay inside it.

This is a psychological model, so the comfort zone isn't a physical place.  It's the areas of our lives where we feel comfortable.  More specifically, it's those things in our lives that we're familiar with, that we've done before (usually many times) and which we thoroughly understand.  If you're an expert in an aspect of your job, and everyone comes to you to solve that particular problem, then that will be part of your comfort zone.  If you know every part of your home, you can find the light switches in the dark, you know where everything belongs and you instantly notice something out of place...then that's part of your comfort zone.

So the comfort zone is a good place?

The choices we make determine the shape of our lives, and the things we believe shape our choices.  One belief a lot of us share is that life is about finding the comfort zone and holding onto it.  We might spend all day at work so that in the evening we can be comfortable at home in front of the telly.  When we see our friends, partners or loved ones we broadly know how they'll behave and what they'll say.  It's known, it's restful and it feels safe.

The comfort zone, then, is clearly an important thing to have in your life.  Without that known, restful, comfortable place we carry a certain degree of stress in our minds and bodies that is never really shed.  The comfort zone brings us a sense of the familiar that's part of the basis of mental well-being.

But there's nothing to say that all the things we find in our comfort zones are positive.  With the best intentions, we can build comfort zones in our lives that end up causing us harm.  Over-eating for instance, can be comfortable and known.  A stale relationship or friendship that hasn't been nourishing in years can still be called comfortable.  Even things like a job that doesn't satisfy or an abusive home environment can be part of a comfort zone.

So while comfort zones are important and healthy, a life spent wholly inside one, or having goals that are about spending more and more time inside it, can bring us all sorts of problems.

What are the dangers of living in the comfort zone?

1. Some comfortable things are hurting you

Our areas of comfort - those parts of our lives that are familiar, known and which we regularly choose to revisit - can be nourishing or they can be harmful.  But there are always those parts of our comfort zones that we known, deep down, are just hurting us.  Maybe it's being a 'doormat' for others, or perhaps it's telling others that we're incapable, ugly or stupid...and believing it.  It could be something visible to others (smoking, or eating a lot of fatty or processed foods) or it could be invisible to everyone else, like needing to be busy to avoid facing a fear, or having an inner-voice that is constantly persecuting and belittling.  There are so many things that we know are harmful...but they're familiar, they're known, they just seem to be part of the fabric of reality.  They're comfortable, and often we stay with them simply because they are known.  Better the devil you know.

If you never shake up your comfort zone, these kinds of things can be so familiar that they go unnoticed.  Sometimes that's why we avoid certain kinds of new situations or certain conversations...we know that they could expose these darker parts of our comfort zones.  But the truth is that everything inside your comfort zone is something you've chosen...and you have the power to choose something else.

2. The comfort zone is always shrinking

One part of this model says that the comfort zone is constantly shrinking.

That is, the number of things that feel comfortable and safe seems to constantly shrink, and doing anything else seems more difficult and more frightening as time passes. The comfort zone - and what it means to leave it - is different for everyone.  At one time, perhaps you were comfortable going to parties or moving to a new team at work - but as time passes, perhaps you choose to stay at home, and you'd rather not take a new opportunity at work.  These things seem more imposing or frightening than they used to.  I've worked with clients who find standing up in front of hundreds of people to be a breeze...but having an uncomfortable conversation with a parent is terrifying.  And when we were all very young we had to leave the comfort zone to learn to speak or to walk - but as adults, learning another language or learning to dance can be a much more frightening prospect.

The longer we remain safe and unchallenged in our comfort zones, the fewer things seem to feel safe and comfortable, and the number of things that seem threatening or unfamiliar grows.  Clients I've seen with crippling anxiety tends to have a desire to burrow into their comfort zone and stay there.

But great things await you when you choose to step outside...

3. Ships were not built to sit in harbour

I've spent years working with clients from every social background and of all ages, and while I'm constantly fascinated and surprised by the variety of people's experiences, there are a few things that have been true for almost everyone I've worked with.  One is this: you are more creative, more powerful, more resilient and more capable than you realise.  We all tell a story about ourselves - who we are, where we come from, what we're capable of - and often we have this idea that other people can do things we can't do.  But the only difference between the pioneer, the successful entrepreneur, the warrior or the explorer and everyone else is a healthier understanding of comfort and risk.

We all need a comfort zone - we all need an area in our lives that feels safe and familiar - but we were not built to live there.  This is the great misunderstanding behind our culture that I mentioned earlier.  Our minds and bodies are most healthy when we regularly embrace risk, change and adventure.  When we can transform a fear of the unfamiliar into the thrill of discovery.  We must re-learn a love for these things, rather than seeing challenge as something to be endured until we can return to comfort and familiarity.  If we buy in to the vision that the comfort zone itself is the goal, all we'll find are shrinking horizons, the stunting of our potential, anxiety, low self-esteem and potentially a host of other health problems. We miss out on the richness that life offers us, and we reinforce the mistaken idea that we're "not that sort of person".

The risk zone

How do we escape the bitter-sweet trap of the comfort zone?  By embracing risk.  In my next blog entry I'll write about risk, how it's got such a bad rap, what it can do for you and how you can start taking manageable steps into it.