Life Outside The Comfort Zone
Focusing on yourself and growing your confidence is the biggest act of self love. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it. I’ve been doing slow work on this for years. This year I threw myself at it and for the last 6+ months I've focused on expanding my comfort zone.
So What IS a Comfort Zone?
A comfort zone is defined as a psychological state, which is familiar to the person. Thus enables low levels of stress or anxiety. It’s a term for things that you are comfortable doing. Science says comfort zones are activities and behaviours which form a consistent routine.
The comfort zone shrinks when you stop doing that activity. For example, we all stopped socialising during covid. After lockdown, being sociable again was difficult for some people (me included). Or imagine it’s been a long time since you drove on a motorway. It causes the comfort zone to shrink, and then motorway driving is now outside the comfort zone. It’s now something you don’t want to do and will activity avoid, to reduce the discomfort and anxiety.
Yet, we can also grow that comfort zone by doing the opposite, by trying new things. Finding something that is just outside the zone. For example, wearing shorts if you have an eczema flare on your legs, might be outside your comfort zone. To help get comfortable with this again, you could wear the shorts for 1 hour a day, in the safety of your own home. You could of course bite the bullet and wear them to a social event. Chances are this is too far outside the comfort zone, and too difficult to do.
You can grow your comfort zone for any area of your life:
Socialising and relationships
Confidence
Skills and hobbies
Fears or phobias
Clothing and food
Optimal Anxiety
In 1908 two psychologists (Yerkes and Dodson) conducted experiments on mice. They studied how electric shocks (as a form of stress) affected their ability to learn tasks. Very low, or very high stress (shocks) impaired their performance. Whereas a moderate level of stress improved it. This was the foundation for something that later became known as Optimal Anxiety. It suggests there is a level of stress or anxiety that can enhance performance. Then when the stress becomes too intense, performance declines.
We need to find a balance between comfort and challenge. Where we push ourselves to do something we usually wouldn’t, but not so much that we are overwhelmed. This balance will be different for everyone. In my experience it changes depending on the day!
My Fearless Era
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have been following my ‘Fearless Era’ series. Where I push myself outside my comfort zone to try new experiences. So far I’ve done:
Singing lessons
Drag show and night out
Running 10k and new exercises classes
Buying a black dress
Boudoir photoshoot
Solo travel to Estonia and solo camping
More public talks
Making new friends and trying social clubs
It started as a way to encourage myself. After months (okay fine, years) of being too insular because of my health, I wanted to make up for lost time. I discovered two things. One, life is much more fun and fulfilling outside the comfort zone. Two, the comfort zone can grow quickly.
The further you are willing to go outside that comfort zone, the faster it will grow.
So this September I would like to issue you a challenge. What new experience or activity can you do which will push you slightly outside your comfort zone?
