Leaving Your Comfort Zone Tips & Tricks

Learn to exercise your brain by leaving your comfort zone. Our brains are very complex and powerful tools. They have a massive amount of power, can do amazing things and overcome the challenges we face. They tend to develop habits and like routine. In other words, they like feeling comfortable. However, this isn't always what our brain needs. When you stick to a routine and do not change it up, you can feel down and lose motivation. Therefore, to ensure this doesn't happen, you should try leaving your comfort zone to make your brain work harder. Doing so will encourage you to be more productive and help your brain to grow.

The comfort zone is where your brain feels safe and happy in its routine. As long as our basic human needs are being met, our brain is content. The reason for this is because they are in control and are doing what they know. Moreover, they know what exactly to expect. Therefore, they do not have to experience unfamiliar situations which are uncomfortable for them. For them, there is no incentive to do this. In other words, they tend to adopt the fight or flight response when faced with new challenges. Leaving your comfort zone means you can experience anxiety, fear, and stress unfamiliar to you. Nevertheless, leaving your comfort zone is something you must do.

When you are in your comfort zone, you are content as you do things out of habit. Therefore, you have little stress and anxiety. However, your mental health may suffer as your brains have to grow, even if they don't like it. Yet, we should not put too much pressure to make significant changes, as this can prevent the brain from leaving your comfort zone due to high levels of stress and anxiety.

It is about finding a happy medium between the comfort zone and trying new things. Nonetheless, by pushing your boundaries and leaving your comfort zone, you can adapt and become comfortable with new experiences and gain new skills.

When leaving your comfort zone, you will likely move through other zones. These zones are fear, learning and growth. Firstly, you go outside your comfort zone and enter the fear zone. Since our brains dislike change, we have negative feelings during the fear zone. You may feel anxious, stressed, and lack self-confidence.

Initially, you will try to find excuses or reasons not to go through with leaving your comfort zone. Secondly, you enter the learning zone. When you overcome the challenges of the fear zone, you can learn new skills. Therefore, you become more comfortable, and this experience can move into your comfort zone.

Finally, you enter the growth zone. The growth zone allows you to set new goals and add meaning to your life. When you are in the growth zone, you will experience feelings of pride, happiness and self-worth. The growth zone is what makes leaving your comfort zone worthwhile.

When leaving your comfort zone, you should start by creating a mindset that will allow you to become more open to change. However, to shift your mindset, you must determine how to control the negative emotions we experience.

To go outside your comfort zone, you should try and make simple changes to your daily routine. Doing so will force your brain to become more able to challenge itself. Leaving your comfort zone will then become a daily task. Therefore, you will be less anxious when doing new things as you are used to it. There are many simple changes you can make, for example:

• Try something new for dinner
• Buy clothes which you wouldn't normally wear
• Speak to new people
• Try to be more active
• Take up a new hobby
• Take some time away from technology

Regularly leaving your comfort zone will allow you to become more aware of your emotions. This is because you often experience the negative feelings you have when outside your comfort zone. Therefore, you can use these emotions as tools to guide them, rather than holding them back.

Just like going for a run helps your body remain healthy, working on your skills is how your mind remains healthy. Leaving your comfort zone in this way brings many benefits.

• You become more employable. As a result, may get a promotion or new job offer.
• You can become more adaptable. Therefore, you will adapt to change better and not get stressed out over the little things.
• Your skills may help develop relationships with others. For example, if you have skills in cooking, others may come to you for advice.
• When you develop your skills, you gain more confidence. Therefore, you can enjoy all the other benefits, but you can become happier, with higher self-esteem as a result.

Leaving your comfort zone means you must adopt a growth mindset. Growth is a vital part of your lives, giving them meaning. You need growth to have a successful life because it pushes you to try your best, set goals, and achieve them. Therefore, when you try to achieve growth in all that you do, you have a growth mindset.

In other words, you don't mind leaving your comfort zone as you want to gain new skills and achieve your goals. This is different to people who do not have a growth mindset as they do not try to better themselves. If you have this fixed mindset, it will prevent you from trying to do better in fear of going outside your comfort zone.

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To help you when leaving your comfort zone, you must have the support you need. When surrounded by positive people who also have a growth mindset, it is much easier to be motivated. Therefore, you should aim to have people who are happy and work hard themselves. When you do this, you may find that you are more focused and have more drive to succeed. These people will encourage you and be proud of you for leaving your comfort zone.

On the other hand, negative people can be draining. Therefore, we should find the courage to reduce the amount of time spent with them. Doing so is because they may take away your motivation and will not help push you to go outside your comfort zone. They may therefore hold you back, and therefore they aren't what you need in a friend.

The language you use can change the way you think about something. When you use positive rather than negative language, it can be much easier when leaving your comfort zone. For instance, the problem is often a negative word that can be off-putting. Instead of using the word challenge, we can change our mindset and approach difficulties with more confidence and less anxiety.

Often, the one thing that can prevent you from leaving your comfort zone is the fear of failing. However, life is too short to live in fear anymore. You need to overcome this and push yourself. Accept that sometimes failure will happen. However, do not think of yourself as a failure. When we fail, we grow even more. Any successful person knows that failure is expected. Yet, it gives them the push to try again and overcome barriers. There is always a lesson to learn in failure, so don't let your pride stop you from finding it. In short, never give up on leaving your comfort zone. It is the only way to find success and grow.

Written by Amy Bamford