Comfort Zone…  what an interesting concept.

The zone where you are comfortable – it’s soft, warm, cuddly and safe.

Outside your comfort zone – your ‘learning’ zone.

It’s uncomfortable.  Probably doesn’t feel very warm, cuddly, nor safe!

Outside your learning zone – your ‘don’t effing go there’ zone!

Don’t want to talk about that!

The concept of comfort zones have been used as excuses, reason, justifications and rationalisations for ages.

It begs the question – what is a comfort zone?

I think it helps to define it.  In order to define it its necessary to determine the answer to a question –

What are the walls of your comfort zone made of?

The answer – The walls of your comfort zone are made of your ‘Unwillingness to Experience’s’.

That’s a mouthful so let us break it down.  If you are willing to experience something, it is comfortable to experience it.

If it’s uncomfortable to experience, you will be less willing.  If it’s VERY uncomfortable to experience, you will be VERY unwilling.

So your comfort zone is limited by what you are unwilling to experience.

So the walls of your comfort zone are made of ‘Unwillingness to Experiences’.

So what’s involved in changing this?  Here’s a great question you can ask yourself –

“If I was willing to experience (fill in the blank), what would I then experience?”

The (fill in the blank) is whatever you are unwilling to experience.

The magic of that question is that in order to answer it, it is necessary to become willing to experience the (fill in the blank).

Be aware that the first answer you come across will more than likely be an emotion, and  you guessed it – it will be one that you’re unwilling to experience.

Let’s look at an example – you can either use this example, or you can choose to work with something that YOU are unwilling to experience.

For lots of people, they are unwilling to experience public speaking.

So we ask the question – ‘If I was willing to experience public speaking, what would I then experience?’

The answer might be ‘freezing’ or ‘fainting’.  You’re probably unwilling to experience whatever the answer is.  Ask the question again.

‘If I was willing to experience freezing, what would I then experience?’  The answer might be panic or terror.  Ask again.

‘If I was willing to experience panic or terror, what would I then experience?’  The answer might be fear.  Ask again.

‘If I was willing to experience fear, what would I then experience?’  The answer might be scared.  Ask again.

‘If I was willing to experience scared, what would I then experience?’  The answer might be ‘being ok.’

As you do this, you’ll start to feel different.  If you keep going with this question, you’ll become more willing to experience public speaking (or anything else you have been unwilling to experience).

Therefore, you will change your comfort zone!

If this helped you in some way, please share it.

Mike Irving