6 Steps to Get You Past Your Comfort zone and into the Mainstream of life

Forget expensive web design, follow this step-by-step guide to make your own professional website!

Website DIVISIONS (Over 600 articles to help you to grow in every facet of your life)

Written by Jimmie Burroughs Email to a friend

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. So if you’re feeling uncomfortable right now, know that the change taking place in your life is a beginning, not an ending…” -Neale Donald Walsch.

Do you feel bored with your life and have fear of the future?  Perhaps it is time to stretch your boundaries a bit. We are programmed to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, but that isn’t always in our best interest when it comes to achieve success and to experience new and exciting things in life. Your comfort zone will keep you a prisoner, and deprive you of truly living your life to the fullest.

Your comfort zone is the self-imposed boundaries where you have told yourself that you must remain in order to be safe and comfortable. Just the thought of going past those boundaries fills you with fear and anxiety, so you refuse to do so. The problem is that life begins when you get past your comfort zone. Therefore, if you desire to live life to its fullest, you must decide to push yourself out of your comfortable nest and stretch your wings and fly, and discover the excitement of living. The following are 6 Steps to get you past your comfort zone and into the mainstream of life:

• Get past your fear of what others think.
• Face up to the things of which you are most fearful
• Be willing to take some risks
• Forget about the results and consecrate on the means
• Don’t get hung up on things that don’t go your way…move on
• Lose your fear of the unknown

Get past your fear of what others think

Probably the thing that holds people back the most is what others may think of them. Therefore, they want to avoid anything that might make them look foolish. There is something that you need to know about what others think: they could care less! Most are more concerned about their own tiny headache than they are whether you live or die. So why then care what anyone thinks. Go ahead make mistakes and learn from them. Be human and realize that you are not perfect, and others will actually like you more for it.

Face up to the things of which you are most fearful

Fear is a legitimate God given drive that is given to protect us from harm, but when we use it as an excuse to stay in our comfort zone rather than moving forward and experiencing all that life offers, we are using the fear drive other than what it was intended.

Make your own private list of things that scare the pants right off of you, but things that you would really like to do if you weren’t so afraid. Then take them one at a time and decide all the reasons why they scare you. Once you know why you are scared, then, gain all the knowledge about those things from others that have done them that you can. Knowledge will drive away fear quicker than anything. Lastly, just push yourself to do them just a little at a time until you build your confidence.

One of the things that I was most fearful of when I was young was public speaking. I wanted to be able to do it, so I took the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. The knowledge I gained helped me to have the confidence needed, and later I became a public speaker and spoke to large groups. It is something I thoroughly enjoy, but never would have been willing to do unless I pushed myself out of my comfort zone.

Another thing I loved to do was water skiing. I wanted to learn to go over the ski jump, but was really apprehensive of it. On the ski jump where we skied, someone missed the jump and hit the side and was killed; this added to my fear. Anyway, I finally got past my comfort zone and tried the jump. The first time I lost it and landed hard in the water. The second time I lost it again. The third time I sailed right over and made a perfect landing. I must admit that it was not that much fun especially when you consider the possibility of falling and bouncing around on the water at 40 or 50 miles per hour with a couple of water skis bouncing along with you, so that was my last experience with the ski jump, but at least I knew I had conquered my fear and proved to myself that I could do it.

Be willing to take some risks

One of the things people reaching retirement regret most about their life is that they were not willing to take risks; therefore, they believed that they missed out on a lot of things that they would have really enjoyed. When I say willingly taking risks, I don’t mean stupid risks like experimenting with drugs that could kill you or ruin your life, or any other stupid risk that offers nothing constructive, but only the risk of harm. I’m talking about doing positive things that you want to do, but don’t because of fear. You may want to make new friends but are afraid to take the initiative to talk to new people because you are afraid they won’t like you or will reject you. Be sure that any time you push yourself forward that there will be risks, but the risks are nothing compared to the excitement of doing things and accomplishing things you never thought that you could do.

There are no guarantees in life and life is full of risks, but if you are fearful to the point that you take no risks at all, you forfeit much of the meaning and purpose you could have in life otherwise. The truth is that most all the things in life that people aspire to have certain risks that must be faced. When I started college, I had to work fulltime to earn a living for my family. I had a wife and two small children. If I had allowed myself, I would have decided it was setting myself up for failure, and the risks were too great, and would have refused to have gone through with it. But instead I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and took on the challenge. It took six years, but I made it and with a straight “A” average.

Forget about the results and consecrate on the means

We are so result oriented that we often consider the results that we want, and then decide that we could never reach them. Forget about the results, win or lose, and concentrate on the means. Don’t be afraid of failing. Babe Ruth was the home run king in his day, but on the other side he was also the strikeout king. Edison had failed a thousand times before he invented a working light bulb. The difference between successful people and those who are unsuccessful is that successful people aren’t afraid of failing, and if they do fail they keep going.

I can think of enough reasons I can’t do something never to try anything. Decide on a plan and work your plan and if it fails, shift to another until you succeed.

Don’t get hung up on things that don’t go your way…move on

As a rule, there will be more things that won’t go your way than those that do. There are two ways that you can respond; you can become discouraged and angry and then quit and regress to your comfort zone, or you can just say “oh well” and move on to the next phase. Some become so filled with anger and discouragement because of all the things that go wrong in life until they are completely miserable and miserable to be around. If you want to escape your comfort zone and live life, you must not get hung up on all the things that are certain to go wrong.

Lose your fear of the unknown

Over the years, missionaries have traveled to faraway places to face the unknown because they believed that it was God’s will for them. Someone asked a missionary, “How can you leave your family, and friends, and comforts of life to go out into the unknown?” He answered, “You can go anyplace you feel God wants you to go as long as you are willing to face the possibility of never coming back.” That may be a little more aggressive than some of us would want to be concerning leaving our comfort zone, but the truth is that facing the unknown does take some courage.

Truly living life is a journey through the unknown. Being born must be a terrifying experience for a newly born baby. They have been used to the comfort of the womb; being warm and feeling safe, and then suddenly they are thrust out into the unknown world with all its unfamiliar noises and discomforts. Little do they realize at that time that to remain in the comfort of the womb wouldn’t be a very fulfilling life. It takes a bit of getting used to their new world, but a little at a time they begin to adjust, but before long they are giggling and taking in everything.

Losing your fear of the unknown must be a determination. Each time you are willing to try something new, it will strengthen that determination to disallow fear to hinder the opportunity to experience new and exciting things. It is true that Life begins when you get past your comfort zone, but if you are not willing to take the first step, then you will never experience many of the exciting opportunities life holds for you, and you will surely look back one day and wonder why you let your comfort zone rob you of so much of your life.

 About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is a motivational speaker and author who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Development for more than 30 years. There are hundreds of articles to help you on this website (Website Contents) in your personal growth.

_____________________________________________________________________________________   To subscribe to blog, simply click on the RSS button on the left, and copy and paste the URL of our RSS feed into your RSS reader. ARTICLE INDEX _____________________________________________________________________________________    © 2011 Jimmie Burroughs. All rights reserved