Do one thing a day that scares you!
I have this coffee table book sitting in my office and in honor of the scary month of Halloween, I thought it would be a fun topic. The book that I have is filled with uplifting quotes about life and going outside of your comfort zone.
Oftentimes, when we think about health we think about eating well, exercising and hopefully limiting stress. However, there is a difference between stress and pressure. Some pressure is good and keeps our mind and body not only going but thriving. Just like putting pressure on our muscles helps us get stronger, putting pressure on our mind helps us stay sharp.
The phrase ‘comfort zone’ was coined by management thinker Judith Bardwick in her 1991 work Danger in the Comfort Zone:
“The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.”
Judith Bardwick
Essentially saying, when people operate in their comfort zone, there isn’t much incentive for them to reach new heights of performance causing their progress to plateau. Though coined in 1991, the studies on comfort zones go back to 1907 when Robert Yerkes and John Dodson conducted an experiment with mice that later became the Yerkes-Dodson law.
They discovered that mild electrical shocks could be used to motivate rats to complete a maze, but when the electrical shocks became too strong, the rats would scurry around in random directions to escape. The experiment demonstrated that increasing stress and arousal levels could help focus motivation and attention on the task at hand, but only up to a certain point.
Our nervous system has a peak point in which it functions at the highest level. Too little arousal, we are bored and remain in the comfort zone. But if there is too much, we enter the panic zone which also stalls progress.
From Comfort Zone to Growth Zone
When leaving the comfort zone, fear doesn’t always equate to being in the panic zone. As the below diagram shows, fear can be a necessary step en route to the learning and growth zones:
When leaving our comfort zone for something greater, we must remember that it’s all about progress over perfection. We can plug and play to find our optimal zone of performance in all areas of life. As long as we are pushing ourselves daily, we will be able to push through the fear and pressure and continue to be able to set new goals and live out our dreams with purpose.
“All Growth Starts at the End of Your Comfort Zone”
Tony Robbins
We challenge you to step outside your comfort zone once a day, everyday! We are on this growth journey together. Let us know what you did today to move closer to your growth zone!
