This seems really obvious to me now and also like something tons of other people have thought of, but I’ve never really heard it explained this way.
You hear about how going outside of your comfort zone leads to growth, or how pain is where you learn and grow.
Based on how people talk about it, you’d think that they are advocating going as far out of your comfort zone as possible, and staying there forever.
This is clearly not sustainable. And may actually explain the burnouts and crashes that many of these “high-performers” or extremists suffer.
I think the real goal is to regularly be going a bit outside of your comfort zone, and then having your comfort zone expand to meet you.
For example, the first couple times I traveled abroad, it was kind of terrifying. There are so many unknowns, both about the locations and about myself.
But as time passed, I became more comfortable in those places and in the knowledge that I’m always going to be able to figure things out for myself.
And that’s my comfort zone growing.
Traveling alone internationally and spending months living abroad no longer scares me much and isn’t outside of my comfort zone at all.
I think that if you consistently seek opportunities to go a bit outside your existing comfort zone, of the course of years you will find yourself with very little that scares you or makes you uncomfortable.
And for me, that’s a bit of the goal!
I want to learn about the world and myself. I want to experience new things all the time. And while my goal isn’t to eliminate anything that might make me uncomfortable, I do enjoy the idea that I could be totally comfortable with the vast majority of events and experiences that exist in the world.