The Comfort Zone

I recently adopted a beautiful baby Indian Ringneck parrot. When I got him, he was afraid of my hands and would occasionally bite me. Now he’s really warming up to me and I can pat him without my fingers suffering which I’m grateful for. At the moment, I’m teaching him to step up on my finger. He’s getting there, but we’ve still got a long way to go before he’s mastered the concept. Now you’re probably wondering why I’m going on about my bird. Well, I love analogies. I think they can be quite helpful to explain things and shed light on different perspectives. So, I think this story will be helpful in explaining something that may be able to help you on your journey.

I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this. Just like birds and other animals, we humans naturally fear the unknown. Just like my parrot – his name is Nymph by the way – when presented with a new opportunity, for him it’s stepping up on my finger, we stay within our comfort zone, and we protect ourselves. We avoid the opportunity, or we see it as a threat. In doing so, we continue to live in fear. It may not always feel like fear though. As I said, we like to protect ourselves, especially from failure and from things we’ve never tried before. It makes us comfortable. It makes us seem like the hero of our lives. And though many of us would be perfectly content with staying in a cage for all our lives, that doesn’t mean we aren’t still limiting ourselves to what could be. We could have stayed crawling for all our lives, or we could have stepped up and walked. Though it wasn’t easy or instant to start, you tried, and look at where you are now, in all different aspects of the life you currently lead.

Every day, I am actively showing up to train Nymph, put my hand out with a treat for motivation, and continuously present him with the chance to practise and improve. Guess what? Life does this for you too. Maybe not in the form of a giant hand feeding you seeds, but all around. You are constantly surrounded by opportunity, and you know in your heart the rewards that will come from stepping out of your comfort zone.

The truth is, eventually, you’re going to have to get used to being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Especially people who want something new. If you want to start your career, a business, or even just achieve a goal, this is your first lesson and the most important realisation. I never expected to start out my career writing public articles, making videos, or even organising a flashmob. I’ve never done anything like this before, but one day, I started, and now here I am. It doesn’t necessarily come natural to me, but stepping out of my comfort zone has made me who I am today, and it is what has allowed me to help others on their journey.

Almost every day I hear people say how they want to change, like lose weight or become rich, but they never actually take action towards achieving their goal. It feels more comfortable for them to joke about or criticise what they want instead of actually go for it, but you have to understand that if you want something, you have to at least open your hand to take it or step forward.

I want you to imagine that you are standing inside of a chalk-drawn circle. This is representative of your comfort zone. Now step outside of the circle and draw a line from the original circle around your feet. If you continued doing this, eventually your circle would grow and grow. This is actually what is happening constantly in real life as you learn and grow. When you first started to walk, to ride a bike, to make a friend, you stepped out ever so slightly, drew a bigger circle, and it grew.

With this analogy in mind, I want you to try something. Think of an area in your life you would like to improve on or step into. Now, think of something really small that you could do to step out and grow your circle. Maybe you could try a new food, talk to someone new, even just write a sentence for a book you’d like to publish one day. What is one tiny thing you could do to grow your circle? Now imagine if you did just one thing every day.

Sometimes Nymph just doesn’t want to step up and that’s okay! We just try again later. Progress includes trying to make progress.