We're constantly fed messages in today's world that we need to be pushing ourselves beyond the comfortable and familiar if we truly want to be successful and fulfill all our dreams. But is being comfortable really that bad for us?
Whilst it's definitely the case that by making an extra effort we can push our boundaries and make progress on important goals, this doesn't mean that preferring to stay in our comfort zone is necessarily a bad thing.
So what exactly is meant by comfort zone? Well, a comfort zone is really just a grouping of those people or places that make us feel comfortable. Our comfort zone is where we often feel most at peace, where everything seems safe and predictable, and where we're often most productive and engaged. Examples of things in a comfort zone often include - home, close family and close friends, being in nature, or using existing skills.
Examples of things outside the comfort zone can range from exercising to build muscle strength and flexibility, to something like repeated exposure to fears in order to reduce their potency, e.g. public speaking. But this doesn't mean that personal growth can only be found from outside of where we're already comfortable.
For most of us, what we're naturally good at doing and enjoy go hand-in-hand. A sort of chicken and egg deal you might say. We like doing something, so we favor doing it and get even better at it, so it continues to be rewarding and we keep doing it. Maybe baking, singing, painting or doing crosswords is your thing. Whatever skill it happens to be for each of us, once we've become adept at it and enjoy doing it, we tend to get progressively better at it.
An alternative way of looking at it is that an equal amount of time invested in something we're comfortable doing versus something we're unfamiliar with or uncomfortable doing, will give us a greater return on that time invested in terms of progress made. This is what's often termed playing to our strengths. With this in mind, the idea that doing something that you're already comfortable with is less rewarding starts to seem less certain.
Essentially, this idea that you can only make real progress by going outside of your comfort zone is a little too simplistic. What it really comes down to is being clear within yourself about which goals are dearest to you. Some, perhaps all of those goals happen to lie outside of your comfort zone. Maybe it just happened to turn out this way for you, that the things you really desire don't overlap with what you're already good at. Or perhaps, consciously or otherwise, you like to challenge yourself and therefore have a greater desire to achieve things that don't come easily to you.
This is where looking at effort versus reward comes in, to help assess which goals can be achieved more easily. We often already know, even if we're not willing to acknowledge it, that some of our top goals will be incredibly challenging and require a huge amount of effort, and will most likely take many years of repeated effort to fully realize. This is often due to the goal requiring a skill that we've never developed or are not particularly strong in. By reviewing the likely effort versus the potential reward for our goals, this can provide us with a practical help in prioritizing them.
There will be some goals for us that are just non-negotiable for us, especially if it's a dream we've held dear for a long time. We don't necessarily need to compromise on these goals, no matter how far outside our comfort zone they might be. But it will help us to put them into perspective if we can get a sense of just how much effort might be needed to achieve that goal versus a different goal. If you'd like to take a further look at assessing effort versus reward for your personal goals, simply google the term 'PICK chart' to see examples of how to use this tool for analysis. It's actually quite straightforward, and I've found it very helpful for prioritizing my own goals and opportunities.
By now you might be thinking that from your own experience, stepping out of your comfort zone simply hasn't been worthwhile. If this happens to be the case for you, then that's totally fine, you do you. The only call out here might be to consider what potential opportunities lie outside your comfort zone, and whether those opportunities happen to be important enough for you to make an extra effort. Alternatively, you might find yourself in a different position, wherein you really don't like being in your comfort zone for too long. Again, this is totally fine. But it might be worth thinking about whether there's any skills you already have that are underutilized, and could prove to be quite rewarding if you should choose to give them a bit more attention.
Bear in mind that though that whilst it may not be wholly true that staying in the comfort zone is unhealthy and will only lead to stagnation, that doesn't mean you should do the complete opposite. Just as regularly being outside the comfort zone can be exhausting, never leaving the comfort zone has the potential to be limiting. Rather than favoring one over the other, as is often the case, a balance can be ideal.
It's also good to try to be aware of when you might be limiting yourself by spending too long in your comfort zone. This will help in letting you know when it might be the right time to venture into unknown territories and expand your horizons, to be brave and fly. The unfamiliar can feel unsafe, scary, and will inevitably bring anxiety, but it can also bring excitement too. By conquering fears and expanding into new opportunities, we can grow our comfort zone and avoid limiting ourselves.
If you've made it this far, you've probably realized that the HyggeNu team has something of a soft spot for comfort. We do indeed share a common love for, and are actually big fans of life's simple comforts, especially when it comes to spending precious time with close friends and family. So we find it very reassuring and heart-warming to know that being in our comfort zones isn't such a bad thing after all!