How many times do I need to leave my comfort zone?
And why doesn't slow change and incremental growth count for leaving comfort zones?
Haaaave you stepped outside your comfort zone today?
What about this week? This month? This year? No?
Well, according to society, you might not be living ✨ your best life ✨.
Somehow, almost every other thread on Twitter and post on LinkedIn tells you that the key to discovering the joys of life is to step outside your comfort zone. Science also tells us this — from increased creativity, an ability to deal with (unexpected) changes, and learning how to push boundaries, good stuff awaits you when you leave your comfort zone.
New research also recommends you add ‘strategic instability’ to your life because stability will shut down your brain’s learning centers. But there’s a difference between injecting a bit of change vs changing up your whole life under the guise of leaving your comfort zone.
Theoretically, it all sounds great. But practically, it’s difficult to step outside your comfort zone. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be billions of articles about it.
Also, there’s one aspect I think most of these “step-outside-your-comfort-zone” articles miss. It’s that most of us leave our comfort zones very, very often. But somehow, it goes unnoticed because it’s not the conventional way to leave a comfort zone.
The adventures outside your comfort zone
First, what’s a comfort zone according to science, and why do we need to step outside it in the first place —
Your comfort zone is a behavioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in obvious ways: regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress. In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety—a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal. This space is called “Optimal Anxiety,” and it’s just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we’re too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.
More often than not, the idea of leaving a comfort zone brings up pictures of paragliding or finishing a marathon or something ‘adventurous’ like that. In fact, even the article I’ve quoted above that explores comfort zones and recommends ‘starting slow’ has stock images of the aforementioned activities. Because that’s when stepping out of comfort zones is exciting.
The conventional path is also a gamble, a risk
Growing older, picking up more responsibility, learning about the ways of the world (banks are an eternal source of mystery), and all these other ‘domestic’ activities don’t count as stepping outside our comfort zones. Because they’re boring, they’re expected, and they’re conventional.
But staying inside what looks like a comfort zone is also a change; it is also a step outside. It may not look like it, but choosing not to do something significantly outside a “comfort zone” is a huge risk too. It’s a gamble people take when they want to stay on a traditional, socially-encouraged path of education–job-marriage-kids-retirement.
Regardless of how you view the traditional path, it still involves stretching yourself, learning something new, and doing it for the first time. When it comes to education, your studies/university might pose a new challenge. Dating/marriage means learning to adapt to someone else in your space all the time — that means your comfort zone is now stretched thin until you learn how to tolerate and then accept that person and all their stuff (metaphorical and otherwise).
People who don’t seem like they’re stepping outside their comfort zones might have regrets, too, but often they’re discounted — you should’ve gone into business then/you shouldn’t have married so young — advice that’s neither helpful nor commiseration flows freely. This is because their decisions aren’t seen as risky but rather as the traditional expected path, so why should they feel bad about not doing something big, brave, and whatnot?
But growing up and growing older effectively means you’re going to leave your comfort zone in some way, whether you realize it or not. As my friend put it, it’s not always, “Go jump from a rock or go and socialize aggressively.” Leaving comfort zones is not always big and loud; it can be quiet and go unnoticed easily — sometimes by the people stepping outside it themselves.
Some of us would rather step gingerly out of our comfort zones rather than leap out of it. And that is completely valid. As long as we are growing and heading in a good direction, we're good. There is so much that we can accomplish by going step-by-step.
Also, ideas to leave comfort zones stem from privilege
Here’s another thing those helpful leave-your-comfort-zone articles forget to account for — the world around us. Not a day goes by when it’s the same. Every day, things change around us, and sometimes they change quite drastically — like our good ol’ friend the covid-19 pandemic showed us.
You’re probably outside your comfort zone right now!
None of that counted as leaving the comfort zone, though — even though we were all deeply uncomfortable, scared, and alone (in different ways). Mostly, it’s because the idea of leaving a comfort zone is expected to be voluntary, but that also comes from a place of privilege, no?
Heck, that new Yale research article I linked above puts “travel abroad” as one of the first ways to add unpredictability to your life. It’s not as easy as one would think to travel abroad. It’s not easy to start something new, quit a job, or go on a sabbatical to meditate on top of a mountain.
To create a comfort zone where you’re able to survive and then thrive means you have the means to house, feed, and clothe yourself more than the bare minimum. That’s when you’re able to think beyond this specific comfort zone and choose to leave it to grow.
Your current comfort zone exists, and that’s a frame of reference for your life. So it makes sense that you’re able to conceive an idea of an even better comfort zone if you push yourself for a bit.
How many times do I leave my comfort zone? Asking for a friend.
Humans are creatures of survival and can easily adapt to things. Effectively, this means that every time we leave one comfort zone, we’ll create a new one out of our stretch (and then panic) zones.
But the thought that to leave your comfort zone, you need to go out there (where?!) and try new things every single time is wild. Leaving a comfort zone you worked hard to make comfortable is also easier said than done. It also seems absurd sometimes.
Take, for example, the idea that you need to switch up how you do things. Sure, sometimes it can breathe a fresh perspective, but what if you’ve figured out what works for you and worked hard to be consistent at it — are you supposed to quit things you worked hard to create for your optimal performance on the off chance that there’s something better ahead? How many times?
Do I just have to create comfort zones that I never get to enjoy or live in? What’s the purpose of it all? Most articles say that stepping outside your comfort zone is where you find your purpose, and that’s where you find fulfilment. Ok, sounds great.
But then, do I keep chasing fulfilment/success/purpose in new and newer comfort zones so I don’t get complacent? What’s the limit on the number of times you’re supposed to leave your comfort zone because seriously, we could do this all our lives and not enjoy a single piece of comfort.
Also, the hypocrisy — more often than not, people who ask you to leave your comfort zones and come join them in something that seems wildly exciting and risky are speaking from their comfort zones.
What’s risk and panic to one is a comfort zone to another — yet we continue to expect everyone to leave their individually created and crafted comfort zones for the unknown — all because someone thinks it’ll be life-changing for everyone to bungee off a cliff.
What did you think of this issue?
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Cool stuff I discovered last week! 💌
Ten TED Talks for those in their 20s. I don't think they'll put you in jail if you're 19 or 31, so just check out what catches your interest.
12 seconds to see how sea cucumbers eat. It's wild.
Crowdsourced ideas of how to boost your confidence that don't involve money. Great ideas in this one, tbh.
Too quiet when you're working from home alone? Here's an audio simulation of some colleagues talking. Good background noise. Just don't try to join the conversation, lol.
Everyone gets different Duo notifs — here's the science behind the AI that chooses to challenge, encourage, or instigate you into doing your daily Duolingo lesson!
Leaving you with a bit of positivity:
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to hit like and share this issue if you enjoyed it. 🖤
I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.