Humans are creature of habit and comfort. The early man invented Wheels to make transportation easy and comfortable. Trained animals to help with all the hard works associated with farming. Tools to get works done more efficiently.
Personally, I love a routine in life. I like waking up everyday at the same time, having a morning routine, having a fixed work time, fixed breaks. But ever since the lock down started, I have taken to a rather more relaxing and lazy routine that doesn’t always prove to be a productive one. And I have a number of side projects that I really want to work on but I must say, it is very difficult to get out of this routine of comfort and laziness. I have become so comfortable to it. So much so that the thought of getting up and start doing work makes me put the blanket over my head and doze off.
One of the most dangerous thing that can cause tremendous damage to your growth and success is getting used to your comfort zone.
“A comfort zone is a psychological state in which things feel familiar to a person and they are at ease and (perceive they are) in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress. In this zone, a steady level of performance is possible.”
Humans have a tendency to recede back to the place of least effort and most comfort. Laziness is deep in our blood. But let’s not judge harshly. Being lazy is not a bad quality to have, depending on how you choose to get done work.
Many of the innovations, inventions and the greatest of ideas that we have in the world, roots from inconvenience, laziness and the drive to make our life more comfortable. Like Wheels: to make transportation easy, tools to make cutting and hunting easy, telephone: to have a smooth communication system, food delivery system, washing machine. Anything and everything that makes us comfortable roots from that one lazy person who just wanted to never get our of the comfort zone.
The need to be comfortable is what drives the market and our economy. So why is it so that time and again we are asked to step out of our comfort zone? Stay in your comfort zone, said no one ever.
Let’s explore more why that is so.
In 1908, Two psychologists, Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson developed the Yerkes-Dodson Law, an empirical relationship between pressure/stress and performance.
So according to this law, performance increases with physiological or mental arousal up to a certain point.
When you are in your comfort zone, you have minimal stress and anxiety. In order to your maximum performance you need to be in the optimal performance zone is is outside your comfort zone.
People everywhere are talking about how growth starts where the comfort zone ends. And I realized that all of the comfort zone quotes have a negative tone because it asks you to step out of your nest, your most beloved and comfortable escape and we are designed to run towards comfort not away from it.
So instead of asking people to get out of their comfort zone, people will be motivated towards growth if they are asked to expand their comfort zone.
So how do you expand your comfort zone and what does it even mean? I feel the only difference between getting out of comfort zone and expanding your comfort zone is that, stepping out of your comfort zone gives you a feeling of leaving your safe place and getting into the big daunting bad world that is scary and unfamiliar, while expanding your comfort zone gives you the feeling that you still have your safe place right where it was, but you are out there facing the big daunting world, conquer it and become better skilled and make it a familiar place. And if you are getting familiar with it, it becomes your comfort zone. It is more about becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable while also having the sense of security that your safe place is still there and you can go back whenever you want, that is enough to push you forward, because you are not scared of losing anything. This sense of security can really help you perform better in an unfamiliar task. The fear doesn’t hold us back to our comfort zone. Because we are not leaving it at the first place… we are just expanding it.
“The Comfort Zone”- The Wealth Hike.
Let’s face it. We live in a world, where human are increasingly not only have to compete against human but also against machine. We are supposed to continuously keep ourselves getting better and get new skill sets at hand.
We live in a world where sadly, unless your passion is science, or engineering, it becomes very difficult to earn money out of your interest. Unless you are so good in your interest that you turn it into something mainstream, you have no chance to live a comfortable life. And sadly may creative and talented people end up working in IT, being mediocre or really good at it but not really happy at it because they build a nest their, they become comfortable with earning enough money. And working part time on what they are really interested in, becomes a task, even though it is something they love to do. Having creativity in such non-conventional passion is innately risky and when we open ourselves up to possible rejection and vulnerability… the drive or love just goes away.
The take away being, to live your life to the fullest and be the best of you, you don’t have to step out of your comfort zone, you just have to expand it.
I hope my article was insightful. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feedback. :D
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