What happens when you try something new that scares you? How do you overcome the fear and still take action anyway?
In today’s fast-paced society people often shy away from things they haven’t tried before. Some become paralyzed by the fear of failure and never come around to the idea of taking risks and stepping out of their comfort zone. This can often leave them stuck and unable to move forward in either their business or their personal lives.
What if I told you that you have the power to completely change your life? Would you believe me? Well, I’ll show you exactly how to gain confidence in overcoming fear and stepping out of your comfort zone so that you can take action to create and live your ideal lifestyle.
What is a comfort zone?
A comfort zone is a space in which you feel safe and comfortable. In other words, it’s where you’re happy and at ease. People who live within their comfort zones tend to be content with what they have and what they know and they rarely venture outside of these areas because they’re either afraid of making mistakes or afraid of failure.
However, if you truly want more in life you must learn how to step out of your comfort zone and start trying new things, expand your horizons, and stretch your beliefs by reaching for more than you think possible. If you’re fearful, you may not attempt anything new. But if you genuinely want to grow as a person and achieve great things in your life, you need to start thinking about breaking free from your comfort zone.
Signs You’re Stuck in Your Comfort Zone
You may be living a relatively good life, but you still aren’t living the life you hoped for. It doesn’t matter whether you’re successful financially, socially, or in any other way. To break free of your comfort zone, you first need to identify the reasons why you feel so comfortable. These could include:
Lack of self-confidence
Lack of self-confidence can make you feel like you don’t deserve success. You may think that you’re just too ordinary to amount to much or live an extraordinary life. Or maybe you’re fearful that others will judge you or see you as weak.
If you feel down or lack self-confidence, ask yourself some questions. For example:
Have I allowed myself to fail in life?
Have you ever made a fool of yourself? Do you regret certain decisions you’ve made?
Ask yourself these questions honestly because you may find a number of reasons why you potentially lack confidence.
Fear of commitment
When you fear committing to something, you allow yourself to stay stuck in your comfort zone. Commitments require time and effort. Most people aren’t willing to make sacrifices to succeed. When you commit yourself, you open up the door to your future happiness and growth.
The thing is, most people often avoid commitments because they believe they’ll either mess things up or they don’t want to be held accountable. Instead of risking failure, they choose to stick with what they know. But that never works in the long run if you want to exceed at a higher level! Life is all about learning, growing and moving forward. So, why would you sit on your laurels and not go after your best life possible?
Fearing rejection or criticism
When you have low self-esteem, you can let negative thoughts run rampant through your mind. You may worry that people won’t accept you and you might spend an awful lot of energy trying to prove others wrong.
No one likes being rejected or criticized however, there’s so much you can learn from constructive criticism that you may not have learned otherwise. Also, don’t worry about what others think of you and start focusing on becoming the best version of yourself and strive to get just a little better each and every day.
Remember that everyone has flaws. The key is to identify and keep working on overcoming those shortcomings. With practice, you’ll eventually build up enough positive momentum to overcome whatever setbacks you encounter along the way.
Being too cautious
If you find it hard taking risks it may be because you’re afraid of losing some of the things that you’ve worked hard for. If so, you’re often letting fear control you rather than using logic to guide your decisions.
Take advantage of new opportunities to test the waters. Ask friends to give you feedback and try putting yourself out there by starting to take smaller risks outside your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to get hurt a little when you do fall as it’s going to happen and you need to think of it as falling forward on your journey to your ideal lifestyle. It might be precisely what you need to push yourself forward.
And remember, no one gets to where they want to go in life without making mistakes. If you make them and learn from them, you’re going to move forward at a pace far faster than you ever thought possible!
Not knowing where to start
If you want to change your situation, you first need to know where you’re going including the life you’re trying to create and then decide where to begin on the journey to get there. This means asking yourself tough questions: What am I not happy with? How can I improve my life? How can I become more efficient and productive? What do I need to start saying no to?
Where do I feel I'm failing?
Begin by identifying the areas in which you want to grow. Then, figure out a plan of action to improve on those areas. Finally, get started. There’s no point sitting around waiting for life to happen. It needs to be created and you need to take action. That’s the difference between those who live ordinary lives vs. those to live extraordinary lives.
Once you recognize these feelings and fears, identify the life that you want to create, and start taking action, you’ll be able to work on overcoming them and making real progress to creating and living your ideal lifestyle. Here are just a few of the ways to help you begin moving toward a healthier outlook on life:
Tips for Leaving Your Comfort Zone Behind
• Accept yourself
Your comfort zone will keep you trapped. By trying new things, you’ll learn to better accept yourself. When you face your weaknesses head-on and stop avoiding them, you’ll quickly start to improve.
• Think positive thoughts
When negative thoughts creep into your mind, try replacing them with positive ones instead. For example, instead of worrying about failing, focus on what you’d like to accomplish. Also, continually tell yourself that you’ll succeed eventually, no matter how scary it may seem now.
• Get involved
When you stay inside your comfort zone, you limit your opportunities and abilities. Getting involved in different activities means meeting new people and learning new things. The more you do, the more confident you’ll become.
• Don’t give up
Just because something has failed once doesn’t mean you should quit. Instead, look for new solutions and try again. Keep pushing yourself to see what else you can do. You’ll eventually find success in the end. Don’t change your dreams but you may need to adjust your path to get there from time to time.
It’s important to understand why you should get out of your comfort zone on a regular basis. So, let’s discuss how stretching your comfort zone can benefit your health and performance.
Benefits of Stretching Your Comfort Zone
1. Freedom
In our modern society, we often associate success with material wealth. However, material wealth does not guarantee happiness. The true definition of success is freedom, being free to choose what kind of life you want to live, and having the means to live that life. In other words, the critical question isn’t “What do I have to lose?” but rather “What do I want to gain?”
2. More Time
Having time for yourself, your family, friends, and hobbies are essential to living a healthy and fulfilling life. However, if you’re always busy working, running errands, taking care of everyone else’s needs, you’ll most often have little quality time left over for yourself. But if you start making time for yourself and making yourself a priority, you’ll find that you have so much more energy and excitement to start creating the lifestyle you want and deserve.
One of the most powerful things you can do to create more time in your schedule is to start outsourcing or working with a virtual assistant to take over the low impact activities in your day in order to free you up to focus on the greatest income generating incomes in your business to help you move the needle forward in creating the business and lifestyle you desire exponentially faster.
3. Better Health
Reducing stress is one of the greatest things you can do for your overall health. People who are constantly stressed tend to experience higher blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol production than their less-stressed counterparts. Chronic stress lowers disease resistance and makes us more vulnerable to illness. By staying calm and relaxed, you’ll better prevent yourself from getting sick, be better focused on both personal and business matters, and help you to maintain better health throughout your lifetime.
4. A Healthy Mind
If you’re unhappy with your current business or personal path, you may wonder what you could do differently to achieve greater satisfaction. On the other hand, if you’re passionate about your work and your personal life and truly enjoy every aspect of both, you know that you’ve found your sweet spot. Whatever your situation, taking control of your mental well-being through self-improvement techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, deep breathing, as well as daily affirmations will greatly benefit you in the long run.
5. Higher Financial Rewards
Typically, if you work hard at something you’d expect to reap financial rewards for your efforts. For example, you shouldn’t consider going into a lot of debt just to get a college degree unless you were convinced that you’ll eventually make back the investment through significant increased earnings. The same principle applies to entrepreneurs, real estate professionals, and business owners when gauging the time and investment to learn or implement something new vs. the financial returns they can expect in exchange. Whichever is the case for you, you’ll need to put in the effort and take action to succeed. And although success is never guaranteed, the odds for greater and faster success are usually in your favor when you start taking calculated risks and getting out of your comfort zone.
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
One of the most important things to remember when stepping out of your comfort zones is to not worry about what others say or think. Focus on yourself, what you’re trying to achieve, the lifestyle you’re trying to create, and don’t let anyone or anything dissuade you along the way from going after your goals and living your most fulfilling life.
If you follow these simple steps, you’ll soon be on your way to a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling lifestyle. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with being uncomfortable and it’s when we’re uncomfortable that we typically make our most progress. It’s also part of growing as a human being. So, get out of your comfort and start creating and living your ideal lifestyle!
If you’re a real estate professional, business owner, or entrepreneur who wants to learn how to quickly scale a lucrative business that supports your ideal lifestyle vs. a business that you have to cram a lifestyle around click here to find out more.