By Chris Beane
What does success look like to you? It’s a question that can evoke different images and aspirations for each person. Take a moment to imagine yourself as that successful person. Imagine how your life would be different, what new opportunities would you have at your disposal? Now think about all the hard work you had to go through to reach that success. If you were to stay on your current path, would you have reached that goal? That depends on how much work you’re doing to stretch your comfort zone.
The comfort zone is just that, it’s comfortable. I like to think about the comfort zone like my warm bed on a cold morning. The alarm goes off, I don’t want to get out of bed. I want to stay nestled under the warm covers, resisting the urge to face the day. I’m sure you can understand that feeling. However, if we never get out of bed, we can never get anything done. Remaining within our comfort zone stifles growth, causing it to shrink progressively until we find ourselves doing less and less. You see, just as you have a desire to stay in your warm bed each morning, you also want to stay in your comfort zone. Just as we have to, eventually, get out of bed and start the day, we also need to stretch our comfort zone to grow.
When we start to stretch our comfort zone, we try new things, we take greater risks, and engage in unfamiliar situations. Being uncomfortable, by challenging yourself to do things you don’t know how to do may seem like a recipe for disaster, and it probably will be. All of these things are supposed to make us uncomfortable, they are after all outside of our comfort zone. This is where you will begin to feel the failures. Yes failures, as in more than one. You see, with each failure we have an opportunity to learn. Learn what not to do, learn where our limits are, learn how to do it better next time. On the other hand, we also have the opportunity to back away, to go back to our comfort zone, and stay stagnant. Trying new things is challenging, because we are scared of the unknown, we are afraid of failing, or even afraid of succeeding.
When you think about your past, I'm sure you’ve had your share of ups and downs. Who hasn’t. That's a part of life. You are who you are because of everything you went through. Your past makes up who you are today. All of the successes and failures. We all have the opportunity to learn and grow from those failures. The things that happened to you good bad or otherwise have shaped who you are today. You have the opportunity to look at those things through a positive or a negative lens. You can choose to learn and grow from them or you can discard them; the choice is yours.
If you are accomplishing everything you set your mind to, then you may not be thinking big enough. Growth does not occur solely through accomplishment. But rather by learning where your limits are, and being able to consistently push that limit further and further. Failure is essential to the growth process. Without failures you will not be pushing yourself to stretch your comfort zone, and that is essential for personal growth. It is so important to understand to look at a failure as an event, not who you are. Start to see failures as stepping stones to success. If you want to achieve your goals you will have to go through failures, it’s part of the process. Use these failures to learn, grow, and stretch your comfort zone.
View failure not as a roadblock, but as a catalyst for growth. Embrace it, learn from it, and use it to propel yourself forward. Success isn’t defined by the absence of failure, but by the resilience and determination to overcome it. What steps are you taking to stretch your comfort zone? How are you embracing your failures for growth?
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