The Importance of Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
A lot of us are used to living in our comfort zone, especially with all the conveniences that we have in today’s society.
Perfectly air-conditioned spaces, comfortable chairs, beds, devices that can do any task for us at the touch of a button, it’s quite clear that the days of chopping firewood for heating in the freezing cold every morning, or working in the hot sun for hours tending to the farm are gone, at least for most of us in these modern times.
Sometimes I wonder though, if all these conveniences and comforts make us too complacent, and make it difficult to find the motivation to take on new challenges and experience discomfort in order to grow.
We’ve become so used to always being comfortable, that the idea of leaving that place of familiarity is scary to a lot of people. But I believe it’s important to step outside of that and get used to being uncomfortable for a number of reasons.
Benefits of Leaving Your Comfort Zone
Getting out of your comfort zone will give you so many amazing benefits in life that you wouldn’t normally get in life otherwise. I believe if you ever plan to become successful or grow in any area, it’s important to allow yourself to experience discomfort.
You Will Become Better at Facing Challenges
Whenever you choose to make strides towards achieving a specific goal in life, you’re just about always going to have to step outside your comfort zone and face new challenges. The more you do this, the better equipped you’ll be at problem solving and finding a way to overcome each new challenge.
Those who fear discomfort and avoid challenges often find themselves easily stressed out by small, daily nuances, or minor problems, and inevitably, when bigger challenges do arise, they’ll struggle to get through them and make progress towards reaching their goals.
You Will Become More Successful
The more you push yourself through discomfort and delay instant gratification and the familiarity that you’re used to, the more successful you’ll ultimately be. Success requires working hard, overcoming obstacles, and dealing with periods of discomfort. This is true for every area of life.
It won’t be easy or fun a lot of the time, but everyone who has pushed past that discomfort and become successful through it all will confirm that all the pain and endless effort was completely worth it, and those who have achieved their goals say they wouldn’t go back or change any of it.
If you aspire to become successful, whether that be in your health, fitness, career, relationships, or finances, then you’ll have to get used to experiencing constant discomfort, so it’s a feeling you should learn to welcome into your life each day.
In a study conducted by two psychologists from the University of Chicago and SCJ Graduate School of Management, researchers asked two groups of students to complete an assignment. One group was asked to seek discomfort as their goal, while the other group was given typical baseline instructions for completing the task.
The study found that the students that were asked to seek discomfort ended up learning more and making more progress than the students that were simply told to do the assignment. This comes to show the impact of having the intention and motivation to seek discomfort when working towards accomplishing new goals.
It's Necessary for Growth
As mentioned above, leaving your comfort zone is an essential part of becoming successful and growing as a person. No matter what your dream life looks like, or what goals you’d like to achieve, if you’re not already where you’d like to be in your life, it’s going to take discomfort and leaving that familiarity you’re so used to, to get there.
I believe in the mentality of no pain, no gain. If you continue to live your life the same way every day, you’ll continue seeing the same results that you have been. It takes leaving your comfort zone in order to learn new skills and develop into the person you are meant to be.
It's Builds Self-Confidence
One of the greatest benefits of getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things is that you’ll notice yourself becoming more confident over time, and it’ll flow into other areas of your life as well.
Maybe you’re making progress in your fitness goals, getting stronger, more toned, and losing weight, but you then notice yourself suddenly being more confident at work, interacting and socializing with others with more ease, when maybe you haven’t necessarily done much to push yourself in that area.
Leaving your comfort zone and seeing improvement in one area often creates a domino effect that will improve the other areas of your life as well, which is why I believe it’s also detrimental to get too used to living in your comfort zone when you’re not at work, in the gym, etc.
You should try to make it a part of every area of your life, to feel that discomfort and get used to living in that feeling most of every day.
Of course, it’s important not to let yourself get burned out either, so getting enough rest and finding balance is very important, but I believe most of us that are unmotivated and uninspired, especially if life feels boring and we know we’re not doing enough, are usually too used to spending most of our day living in our comfort zone.
Helps You Discover Who You Are
Many of us unfortunately go through life living the same day on repeat, not really knowing who we are or what we’re meant to be doing in our lives.
I believe one way to overcome this and really nail down on learning who you are is by putting yourself through new challenges that will force you to act and think in ways you may have never needed to before.
You’ll go through new experiences and quickly find whether those experiences and challenges are exciting and thrilling to you, or dull and dreadful. It’s okay to go through periods of trial and error, where you experiment with different paths to see which one is right for you.
If you continue to live your life the same way every day, you’ll have a hard time making new discoveries about yourself and may miss amazing opportunities or avoid making decisions that would’ve led you down a more fulfilling road, so don’t be afraid to get out and take risks!
Related post: 5 Ways to Discover Your Passion in Life
Life Becomes More Exciting
Going off the previous point, the more you take risks, put yourself through challenges, and allow yourself to discover who you are and what you want to do in life, then your everyday life will without a doubt, become significantly more exciting and interesting to you.
You’ll wake up each day motivated to take on the next new challenge ahead, excited to see how it may change you and help you grow, and each day of living becomes a sort of adventure that’ll keep you from ever getting bored.
While discomfort can be boring at times, it doesn’t compare to the boredom you’d feel living in your comfort zone 24/7, so it’ll inevitably make your life more fulfilling and fun in the long run.
It May Lead to New Connections and Relationships
As your life becomes more interesting and exciting, and you decide to take on more challenges, you’ll more often than not encounter new people along the way as well, some of which may become lifelong friends and help you expand your social circle.
In order to interact with and meet new people, you typically have to go out of your way and be willing to have new interactions with strangers, where you may risk having an unpleasant or awkward encounter, so the process goes hand in hand with leaving your comfort zone.
The more comfortable you are with the idea of it not going well or having to be perfect, the more confident you will be in socializing and handling each interaction with others.
You Will Become a More Well-Rounded Person
Overall, stepping outside your comfort zone does a lot more for you than just accelerate your career, or handle stress easier. Getting used to and embracing the feeling of discomfort can change your entire life and improve just about every area that you’re struggling in.
Embracing discomfort will help you grow and make you a much more well-rounded person, better equipped to handle challenges, stress, overcome obstacles, create new connections, deepen relationships, and know who you are and where to go in life.
3 thoughts on “The Importance of Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone”