How to escape
your comfort zone
What Are Comfort Zones? And
Why Should We Escape?
We all have our comfort zones
– havens of security, familiarity and comfort. But why,
you may be asking, should we escape? Surely a comfort zone
is our reward for hard work, the place we’ve struggled
for so long to get to? The place everyone wants to be? And
wants to stay?
These are good questions.
But don’t be fooled – because there’s a
lot more to comfort zones than meets they eye.
The first problem is that
comfort zones are comfortable –at least superficially.
And because they’re comfortable, they lull us into a
false sense of security and well-being. Yet the very fact
that you have started reading this book proves that, despite
your ‘comfort’. You have a vaguely uncomfortable
feeling that this may not be altogether a good thing.
That’s good! Feeling
uncomfortable is a really good sign; it’s when we’re
blissfully oblivious that we’ve got a real problem.
It’s when we’re not uncomfortable that we aren’t
motivated to confront our true feelings and simply run away
from them – and are doomed to remain trapped in those
Comfort Zones.
Slipping into a Comfort Zone
is a simple process. When we are comfortable, our activities
and behaviour tend to take on familiar patterns. Patterns
become habits; habits become routines; and before we know
it those routines become a rut. And the only difference between
a rut and a grave is the depth of the excavation!
Of course, the most obvious
of all is the material Comfort Zone. It’s one of the
easiest to get trapped in, and one of the most difficult to
escape from. After all, it’s the embodiment of the Great
American Dream; the pursuit of success and wealth and all
their external symbols. Perpetuated by movies and soap operas
and reinforced by advertising, the material Comfort Zone seems,
for most people, to have become the very purpose of life.
But there are also many other
less obvious Comfort Zones. I’m talking about the invisible
prisons of social and parental conditioning, of societal and
cultural norms, of systems and rules and conventions, and
a thousand other factors that are all just bricks in the walls
of the prisons that surround us and prevent us from growing.
If we look at them objectively,
Comfort Zones are almost inevitably states of limbo, secure
castles in which we have imprisoned ourselves or allowed ourselves
to be imprisoned by others. We perpetuate – and grow
– those high walls by not being aware of them, or by
refusing to recognise that they’re there. And so we
compromise and rationalise and convince ourselves that it’s
simply our ‘fate’ to be in our current situation…
and, after all, we could be worse off, couldn’t we?
Mostly, we don’t even
realise we’re in Comfort Zones. And so we simply shut
off any ideas of the alternatives, of the options that lie
outside our own narrow existences. Because it feels so safe
and comfortable within, even to think of venturing outside
our castle (and I’m not necessarily talking about a
physical escape) seems foolish and risky and scary.
And the fact is, it is risky
and scary. But definitely not foolish. Recognising that we
are trapped in a Comfort Zone – and that there’s
a whole lot more to life beyond the walls of our self-imposed
limitations – is the first step towards escaping it
and gaining mature wisdom and insight into our lives. Like
the alcoholic, whose healing process can only begin once he
has stood up in front of his peers or looked into a mirror
and admitted that he is an alcoholic, so we can only begin
to escape our Comfort Zones when we admit that we are trapped
in them. Until that moment of honest self-confrontation, nothing
can happen.
A second important step is
accepting the fact that risk and pain are essential and inescapable
components of this escape, as they are of any change or transition.
In its most trite form it’s a question of ‘no
pain, no gain’. Until we confront this fact, and until
we muster the courage to leave behind the temporary and unfulfilling
‘myths’ of security and familiarity and material
possessions (and they are myths, no matter how real or vital
they may seem to you now), we can never begin the process
of discovering our true selves and leaning what is truly meaningful
and fulfilling and worth while in life.
The Honesty to Confront Your
Self in the Mirror of Truth
It’s all about honesty.
Honesty with those around us, but most of all honesty with
ourselves. In order to become our true selves, we must have
the courage to be ourselves and follow our own dreams. If
we can’t do that, then the life we’re living isn’t
our own. Isn’t that a terrible admission – that
the life you’re living isn’t your own? How can
we ever be self-fulfilled or at peace when we are lying to
ourselves?
Real honesty also means bridging
the gap between ‘Who I am’ and ‘What I do’;
and between ‘Ought to be’ and ‘Is’.
It is being what you believe in; letting every action and
behaviour be an expression of who you are inside. And you
simply can’t do that until you recognise and realise
to what extent your life is being restricted, and how many
of your actions are motivated by external forces rather than
internal desires.
Only you can admit that you
are trapped in Comfort Zones. But, like the alcoholic who
can’t begin to be cured until he has the honesty to
confront that fact and commit himself to doing something about
it, you have to go through the same process in escaping your
Comfort Zones. And, unfortunately, nobody can do it for you
– even though, as you’ll see later, there are
people who can lead you to the water (as this book does),
but then it’s up to you to decide whether you want to
drink.
How Do We Recognise These
Comfort Zones?
There are many different types
of Comfort Zones and, as I said earlier, most of the time
we aren’t even aware that we’re in them. And you
can’t solve a problem until you know exactly what that
problem is. So, how do you recognise your own particular Comfort
Zones?
You already know about material
Comfort Zones, and they’re fairly easy to identify.
But let’s look at another simple example.
You may be trapped in a dead-end
job, hating every moment, resenting your boss, your circumstances,
your pay package. And yet you just carry on from one dreary
or stressful day to the next. You win of dreaming the sweepstakes
or hitting that huge jackpot, and walking into the boss’s
office, telling him his fortune, and walking out into a new
life – perhaps retiring to a desert island. (Don’t
we all have these dreams some time or another?)
Problem is, your chances of
winning the sweepstakes or hitting that big jackpot are about
as remote as your Fairy Godmother appearing, or a Knight in
Shining Armour arriving on a white steed to rescue you, or
any of the other unrealistic fantasies we invent to make our
realities tolerable.
The reality is that you have
to get real.
You have to realise that you
are the Knight in Shining Armour, that you are the Fairy Godmother
who can miraculously change your life for the better. And
you can only do that when you can see things in true perspective.
You can see the lush green fields and mountains of the world
that lie beyond your Comfort Zones only when you have broken
down the high castle walls that imprison you. Yet most people
find it more comfortable simply to remain where they are,
to make excuses and compromises.
But why do you put up with
a life of compromise? Why do you continue to suffer, escaping
only in day-dreams? The truth is that although you may be
unhappy and unfulfilled, this discomfort is relatively more
comfortable than the alternative – like waking up one
morning and walking into the boss’s office and handing
in your resignation.
You are afraid of the void
beyond – the unknown world. WHAT ELSE WILL YOU SO? Will
you find another job? What will it pay? What will your friends/family
think? That’s why, even if actually offered another
job, most people still find it very disconcerting and disturbing
to actually ‘take the leap’, to find the courage
to leave behind their Comfort Zone and accept the risks and
unknowns of a new job. And even when they’ve decided,
they often have difficulty taking the step of actually doing
the things necessary to implement the change: writing the
letter of resignation, telling the boss, making a firm and
final date for leaving.
Being stuck in a lousy job
is only one example trapped in a Comfort Zone. There are many
other examples: an unhappy or stagnant relationship, an unfulfilled
marriage, restrictive religious or social norms, a smothering
small town with no future, an inhibiting, aggressive, over-competitive
city.
The fact is, unless things
become completely intolerable, or until you are fired or retrenched
or dumped and forced to do something about it, it’s
more comfortable for you to stay where you are than to face
it and risk change. And so you stay put. And become more and
more trapped.
Perhaps your own particular
Comfort Zone is mainly a psychological one or emotional one;
perhaps you are inhibited from progressing in your life by
some past, often long-forgotten incident or traumatic experience
or parental reproach or religious rule or societal norm.
For example, you may have
been brought up in time when pre-marital sex was considered
taboo by society. Entrenched by what you heard in church.
Made more real by someone you know becoming pregnant and being
ostracised by family and friends. And twenty or thirty years
later, even though the attitudes of society have changed dramatically,
even though your parents and teachers and church ministers
may all be dead, your attitude and behaviour is still governed
by an amalgam of all your past lessons and entrenched beliefs.
And this may be inhibiting your entire life, affecting your
relationships with members of the opposite sex, preventing
you from making a full and satisfying attachment…leaving
you trapped in your Comfort Zone of loneliness.
Invariably, each Comfort Zone
is unique to each individual and very complex in its uniqueness,
being an amalgam of many factors interacting powerfully with
one another. And even once you recognise your own particular
Comfort Zones, and realise that you’re trapped, why
don’t you simply escape? Unfortunately, it’s a
lot harder and a lot more complex than it seems – and
for these reasons you don’t simply walk out on your
lousy job.
Although you may be lonely
and unhappy and unfulfilled, the truth is that the discomfort
that you feel is relatively more comfortable than the alternative
– that is, asserting yourself against everything that
you have based your past behaviour, changing your entrenched
beliefs to fit the new changed you within a changed society.
In short, simply being honest with yourself in what you really
want and desire in life, and having the courage to go out
and get it.
But Why This Obsession With
Change and Growth? Why Can’t We Just Stay Where We Are,
Secure In Our Comfort Zones?
Many people asked me this
question when I first started working on this book and exposed
them to my ideas. They asked me how I could be so arrogant
as to expect everyone to think as I did – namely, that
growth is the most important and worthwhile task we all have
in life, and that stagnation is therefore the most worthless.
My answer is that these are
not just my subjective thoughts and opinions – they
are in fact universal truths. This is my reasoning:
Everything in the entire universe
is in a constant process of movement, of process and growth.
Decay and death are not only valid parts of this eternal and
ubiquitous process – they are essential aspects of it….for
only through decay and death can new birth begin.
And yet man, with his rational
mind capable of contemplating his own destiny, seems to have
the dubious talent and desire consciously to suspend or delay
or manipulate this process in himself.
For example, medical science
prolongs an often fatally diseased physical life; social mores
and the institution of marriage often prolong fatally diseased
relationships; psychological hang-ups and defence mechanisms
such as rationalisation perpetuate and prolong fatally diseased
emotional, material and spiritual wastelands – those
most insidious of traps that I call Comfort Zones.
Unless we recognise the fortresses
we have built around us, unless we confront our own honesty,
unless we recognise that risk and pain and death of the familiar
and the comfortable are essential companions to the inescapable
process of growth and rebirth, and should therefore be welcomed
and embraced, we cannot even begin to break down the restraining
walls and lower the drawbridge to a new and fuller existence.
I think Morris West expressed
it perfectly in his book The Shoes of the Fisherman:
It costs so much to be a full
human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment
or the courage to pay the price… one has to abandon
altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk
of living with both arms.
One has to embrace life like
a lover.
One has to accept pain as
a condition of existence.
One has to court doubt and
darkness as the cost of knowing.
One needs a will stubborn
in conflict but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence
of living and dying.
That’s what escaping
Comfort Zones is all about – to abandon altogether the
search for security and reach out to the risk of living with
both arms.
If you’re not prepared
to do that, if you’d prefer to keep your security bubble
of rationalisations and illusions and self-deceptions intact
rather than confront the truth and your own honesty, if you’re
not prepared to take the risks and face the consequences,
then burn this book now. Because once you’ve begun the
journey, once you have taken the blinkers off your eyes and
your mind and soul, you will never be able to fool yourself
again. You will either have to continue the journey, or live
forever with the knowledge that you are living a compromise.
And that is the most uncomfortable
Comfort Zone of all.
Authors Details: How to Escape Your
Comfort Zone
From - The Secrets of Unbundling Your Life - By Lee Johnson
with Albert Koopman
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