Challenge: Get Out Of My Comfort Zone Regularly

I read a lot about entrepreneurship, success, self growth, etc. and one of the common advice I keep seeing over and over is: get out of your comfort zone regularly. Every time I read it, I nod. But I do nothing about it.

The reason is, obviously, getting out of your comfort can be scary and is definitely uncomfortable (surprising, I know).

Still, looking back I can see how some of the moments in my life where I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone have stuck in my memory, either because I’ve been proud of myself, grown in some aspect of my personality, or just plain simple, had an amazing time. Some of these moments include going on my first trip (other than with school) with five other people I had never met, pitching a project, doing some prepared public speaking or hitting on a girl I thought was way out of my league.

If I feel so great about all these moments, why don’t I do it more often? Again, it’s scary. Every one of those moments was preceded by fear, and not precisely in small amounts. It could be irrational or not (most fear is), but that doesn’t matter. It matters that it was there, I went through it and achieved something important for me.

I constantly think of things I would like to do, because they could bring great things into my life or because they would help me grow in some form, and time and time again I put them on the “someday” box. Not because I don’t have the time now, but because it would mean getting out of my comfort zone. No more.

Starting next week, I’ve decided to do a least one thing a week that gets me out of my comfort zone, and I’ll be blogging about each of those things. Call it a challenge, if you wish. I already have a few very different things in mind, from public speaking to cooking to trying to get coffee meetings with potentially interesting people, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I think one thing a week is very doable (as opposed to my first initial idea of once a day), and I can always increase that number if I stop finding it challenging (I doubt it). I hope this new habit will allow me to grow in different aspects of my life that I want to improve, as well as learn different things and meet new interesting people. I know it’s gonna be scary. And most of the time, I’ll find excuses not to do it. But I’m looking forward to all of it.