Challenging Your Comfort Zone: How to Break Out the Mold and Press Towards the Mark

It’s been said that the comfort zone is the enemy of progress. But how true is that, really?

Turns out, it’s pretty true – but it isn’t the full story.

The comfort zone can both help and hurt you in different yet similar ways.

This article is going to be an overview of the comfort zone, what it is, the different ways it can affect your life in a negative and positive fashion, and practical steps to expand it so you are comfortable with more things rather than less.

Let’s settle in.

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What is the Comfort Zone?

In layman’s terms, the “comfort zone” is an area where you feel safe and secure. You feel relaxed, you feel nice and “warm”, like a baby being snuggled by their mother. People usually refer to this in terms of a routine but I would take it a step further.

I would say that an individual’s comfort zone is any area in life where they feel as if they have a moderate to high degree of competence. This can range from enough ability to make it through the day in “one piece” or being able to excel past one’s competition relatively easily (AKA big fish in a small pond).

You might display a high level of ability in something like computer science, basketball, writing, or even dating. Those are your comfort zones. You are able to operate with relative fluidity in those areas.

Venturing Out of the Zone

So we’ve established that your comfort zones are your areas of competence. What are things outside of your comfort zone?

Things outside of your comfort zone are things you are not good at or even have no knowledge that you suck at them (more on this later). Usually, these are crucial life areas such as:

• Understanding finances
• Being self-reliant
• Knowing social skills
• Talking to women

The list can go on and on. You will usually get some sort of signal that these are not in your “wheelhouse” by the amount of pain and friction you experience when you do them. They aren’t comfortable. They aren’t your “set point”.

Homeostasis: The Key Driver of Comfort and Competence

In any system, there is a “set point” around which the system is used to operating at. Think of it like a “thermostat” that regulates the “temperature” of that system. If the heat gets too high, it cools down. If it gets too low, it warms up. This is known as “homeostasis” and it is the key driver behind growth and relative stagnation.

Homeostasis operates on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. You have a “set point” for every area of your life. You have one for your relationships, you have one for your business/work life, you have one for your finances, all of it. These different baselines yield different outcomes in life.

Your baseline is moved up or down in any area depending on what you do on a consistent basis.

Meaning, the more you do something – the easier it gets and the more it becomes a standard in your life.

“The New Normal” and Setting the Standard

During the pandemic, many people were talking about this thing called “the new normal”. As in, this is the new standard.

While that is on a cultural level, you can create a “new normal” in your own life which is reinforced by the comfort zone and homeostasis.

The more you do something, the easier it becomes to do. That’s known. What’s not really known or thought about is how this applies to difficult things or easy things as well.

As a young adult, you enter a process of learning and developing at a rapid rate. Things happen quickly. You go to school, you meet friends, you learn how to play sports, you date, etc. You then start to form a “mental model” of yourself and your world in relationship to your experiences in life. This is known as your self-image. You say:

This is who I am. This is acceptable to me.

Unfortunately for many people, this self-image to stay “stuck” after a certain period of time when experiences certain events (end of high school, end of college, etc.) or traumatic events. This keeps one “stuck” in their psychological standard for better or for worse.

This means that whatever was established as “the comfort zone“ is usually never transcended and if it is – it’s only for a brief period of time where someone comes back to the comfort zone.

This is fine if you’re operating at a very high level of performance in key life areas, but if you’re reading this – I’m willing to bet that you’re not. And you know you’re not. How do you know?

When Comfort Becomes Discomfort

Over a certain period of time, if you stay long enough, your comfort zone can become uncomfortable. You know this is the case when you experience feelings of apathy, anxiety, desperation, listlessness and most importantly – stagnation.

These feelings often come from an inner knowing, but you know for a fact you’re stuck in your comfort zone when you see things change around you but you seem to be sort of “stuck in time” like a statue.

Friends may have moved on with their life. You see younger people coming up in life or work and moving past you. Your routine is getting “stale” or may even be negatively affecting your health.

In general, it feels like the walls of a slowly closing in room. You know you are slowly being suffocated.

All of these are a sign that you might need to start changing things up in some fashion.

How to Leave and Expand Your Comfort Zone – 5 Crucial Tactics

There is great opportunity in going beyond your comfort zone because again, over time discomfort becomes comfort and visa-versa.

However, there’s also great danger as well. You can get hurt in some fashion. But if you’re willing to cross that line and step outside the bounds, this is for you. This is a simple 5 step process anyone can follow.

Let’s go through it together.

1. Embrace Challenge

Stepping outside your comfort zone in a small or a big way requires embracing the feeling of being incompetent AKA being a “fish out of water“. The consequences of incompetence exists on a spectrum from something minor like embarrassment all the way to something major like poverty or even death.

You have to be willing to take some degree of risk when you do something you aren’t totally comfortable with. However, the saying

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”

Is a cliche for a reason, because it’s true. Only you can decide what level of risk you are comfortable with and you have to accept that and embrace that.

Implementation: Decide what level of risk you are willing to take on from an endeavor and commit to it. Think of it like a contract. By signing your name on the dotted line, you are taking on the risks (and rewards) of that contract. Think of everything you do that’s a stretch in those terms.

This is the beginning of self development.

2. Plan It Out

Proper preparation prevents poor performance. – James Baker

The best way to fail (at anything) is to not have a plan of attack.

Just like you wouldn’t drive 500 miles without a destination or directions on how to get there, it is absolutely stupid to venture out of your comfort zone without some idea of what you’re going to do.

This is why we have personal growth plans in self-improvement. They chart a course of development for any system.

Implementation: Enviable changes do not happen overnight. Likewise, smaller pieces lead to big wholes. This is why it can help to plan in weeks, months, and even quarters.

I like to plan every quarter. One for each season. I have a macro push (one big lifestyle shift I am chunking away at) and two micro pushes (day to day habits of implementation) every season. This helps me not get overwhelmed and ensures that I am making sustainable progress over time.

Have one major thing you want to build into your life for a season and make that a central focus of your waking days. Every year, you will have 4 major life pushes. If done properly, this can put you in a completely new space at the end of a year and a radically different space at the end of 5 years.

3. Embrace Pain

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. – Carl Jung

When stepping out of your comfort zone, life will hit you again and again and again with apparent failure. At this point you have two options: you can see it as a stopping block (which it very well can be) or you can view it as an opportunity to try harder or change tactics.

Many people encounter failure and give up without experiencing the benefits failure has. Failure shows you areas where you are weak. It shines a spotlight on your incompetence. It then gives you an opportunity to face them and fix them.

Likewise, doing things outside of your comfort zone on a consistent basis sucks until it becomes your new standard. That’s the commitment you made in step one, remember?

Implementation: There is no way to expand your comfort zone without discomfort. I’m not saying you have to run 10 miles a day when you can’t even run 1, but I am saying that in order to grow; you need to inch up that discomfort. That’s the only way you make it normal.

This is part of the reason why monasteries, martial art schools, or other centers of discipline like training younger people. They fall into knowing discomfort as a way of life because that’s all they really know.

4. Fall In Love With Repetition

The only real way to learn is by doing something over and over again with slight variations in between.

In this graph above from the book Atomic Habits, you can see that all behaviors have a point where performing repetitions becomes easier and easier.

Now, your brain doesn’t care what the nature of the repetitions are. This can be anything from smoking cigarettes to talking to at least one new person every day. Over time, it will integrate it into your comfort zone and self-image no matter what it is.

When I was learning to play the guitar many years ago, there was pain involved. The fingering was awkward, I couldn’t switch frets quickly, my hands hurt when I pressed down on the fretboard, and I just sounded bad. But as anyone who plays musical instruments knows, you improve. And I improved. And now I see playing guitar as just another “thing” I do. I don’t even think about it because it’s reached the point of automaticity.

Implementation: Show up every single day on any habit that you’re trying to build. It can be playing the guitar, it can be writing, it can even be breaking a bad habit. Do it over time and it will become easier to make as part of your life.

5. Select a New Target

Once you’ve gone through steps 1-4, you complete the chain by doing step 5. You repeat this again and again for different areas in your life.

As you go through this process of stepping up to the challenge, making a plan to address it, embracing difficulty, and putting in the reps – your ability to do it grows as well. It becomes easier and easier as you do it more and more.

Implementation: Put this into play in every area you want to grow and improve in. Over time, the gains will stack.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

Your comfort zone is any area in which you feel “safe and sound”. These exist on mental, psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual levels. Growth and development is achieved by expanding your comfort zone bit by bit and doing things you are not comfortable with in the beginning. As you continue to engage in it – it becomes easier and easier until it becomes comfortable due to the nature of adaptation and homeostasis.

The process to expand your comfort zone is done by stepping into areas of discomfort, making a plan, embracing the inevitable pain, and doing repetitions. This over time builds competence which then builds confidence.

What are your areas of comfort? How are you challenging them over time? Sound off in the comments.