Now be honest, how often do you push yourself out of your comfort zone? It can be so tempting to stick within the parameters of where we feel comfortable, but in doing so we miss the opportunity to develop and grow. To be great leaders we have to push ourselves as well as our teams.

Don’t get us wrong, there is nothing wrong with a bit of comfort and spending time in our comfort zones can give us an opportunity to recharge, rest and have time away from stresses. But if we want to get ahead or work on our self development we have to push outside of our established routines and practices. As only then will we really develop. Essentially the comfort zone is in our heads (Hollins, 2019) an intangible product of our desires and a space and place where we feel safe and happy. In the comfort zone we find what we are doing relatively easy and it is therefore not akin to self development. In order to grow you need to challenge yourself as this is intrinsic to personal growth.

According to White (2009) there are three psychological states; the comfort zone, the optimal performance zone and the danger zone. He suggests that a slight increase in anxiety means that you will operate in the optimal performance zone, this is because an element of stress pushes us and increases our performance. However, if the situation is too stressful we may be pushed too far and end up in the danger zone where we will encounter panic and anxiety which is detrimental to our performance. So the key is to push ourselves but not too far.

According to recent research people can spend as much as 80% of their time in the comfort zone. Sometimes we don’t push ourselves out of our comfort zone as we fear the consequences. We end up catastrophising (Hollins, 2019), we picture the worst things that can happen, even though they are very unlikely to. We envisage black and white outcomes such as succeed or fail. We ignore the possibility of different gradients of outcomes, such as we may fail at first without factoring in how much we will learn from the experience. This negativity acts like an elastic band pulling us back into the comfort zone where we feel safe.

Another factor that keeps us in our comfort zone is the spotlight effect, this is where we tend to overestimate how much others notice about us. We are at the centre of our own world, the star of our show and we think people are paying us a lot more attention than they really are. I bet if I asked you to think about all the embarrassing moments you have had in the past which you can still cringe about now there would be lots right? Now think of a colleague or friend, how many embarrassing moments can you conjure up of them? I’m guessing nowhere near as many. As soon as we realise that people aren’t really paying that much attention to us, then the sooner we can give ourselves the space to develop as we realise no one will really be bothered whether we get it right first time or make a blunder.

The other things that can keep us in our comfort zone are best friends procrastination and perfectionism. Whilst they may be best friends to each other they are not good friends to us. They work together to delay us from leaving our safe place, first they stop you from trying and then they get you stuck by the desire to be perfect.

So how then do we give ourselves that little nudge to step out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves. What we are looking for here is to challenge ourselves to reach the optimal performance zone where we can learn and develop but not feel overly stressed and anxious. Noel (2016) identified 12 ways to do just that

1. Take the first step - Decide to take the first step and go for it, don’t put it off

2. Put yourself in a new environment - Shake things up. If you tend to work at the kitchen table relocate to another room or to a coffee shop instead for a while as this opens you up to new experiences and ideas

3. Avoid the safe choice - Take the choice that will challenge you

4. Try to see things differently - Even just taking a different route home will mean you see different things

5. Make some snap decisions - Make a decision without overthinking even if it means flipping a coin. We’re not talking life or death decisions here

6. Consider other viewpoints - Debate with others so you can challenge your own ideas

7. Say yes more - Even when you question whether you are ready say yes to new assignments as these could open up opportunities

8. Volunteer - This is a great way to learn while on the job and help others at the same time

9. Feel afraid but do it anyway - Choose something that you are unfamiliar with and do it

10. Create challenges for areas in which you want to improve - Look at what you want to get better at and set yourself some challenges

11. Allow others to make decisions for you - Sometimes just going with the flow and the decisions have made for you is enough of a challenge for planners

12. Tomorrow is another day - As bad as today may end up there is always tomorrow and what doesn’t kill you will after all make you stronger

We find that the more we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone, the more we will develop and in doing so we will then reach an even higher level of optimal performance and we will find that our new comfort zone is a higher state than the previous one leading to continual development and improvement.

So what will you do this week to step outside of your comfort zone?

References

Hollins, P (2019) The Science of breaking out of your comfort zone: How to live life fearlessly, seize opportunity and make each day memorable, Publish Drive
Noel, K (2016) 12 ways to push yourself out of your comfort zone every day, Business Insider
White, A (2009) From comfort zone to performance management, White & McClean

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Helen is an Executive Coach and Strategy Consultant. She runs her own consultancy, helping organisations and businesses develop strategies to differentiate themselves and grow successfully. She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management.