Appreciating The End Of Our Comfort Zone
Movement, which is critical for survival, can be physical or mental. Changing your physical location is a form of movement. Likewise, changing your mental mindset also represents movement.
People typically change for one or more of the following three reasons:
- Discomfort: They hurt enough, and they have to
- Inspiration: They see enough, and they are inspired to
- Knowledge: They learn enough, and they want to
When you look at the reasons, or buckets, that produce change, you realize why you are feeling certain emotions. Because we all feel emotions for different reasons, when you feel strong emotions you should try to understand them and discover what is causing them for you. Encourage yourself to go a level deeper and really figure out why you are happy, sad, angry, grateful, etc…. Find the Why.
Finding The Why Is Not Always Easy.
To find the Why, you must slow down and spend time thinking through a specific set of facts or circumstances to discover and understand what is making you feel a certain way.
Finding The Why Is Not A Waste Of Time.
Realize the time spent to slow down and find the Why is a very valuable exercise. Taking the time needed to listen to your emotions and understand what they are saying is important. Once you can answer “Why do I feel this way?” you are clear on your answer, and you are in a place where you can make a decision.
Once You Know The Why, Determining The What And The How Comes Next.
We’ve talked a lot about values, goals and vision. When you have your basic values outlined, and you make decisions with them in mind, goals and vision should come more naturally. This is true especially if you are giving yourself enough time to think, plan and execute.
Comfort Limits Us All.
Comfort keeps us in bed, on the couch, in the chair. The reasons for change – the buckets – bring us to a point where we reach the end of our comfort zone. This is when our inner voice, our gut, starts to speak up and tell us it is time to change. The buckets represent comfort coming at a cost and the recognition that it is time to get up and move, with the movement being mental or physical, resulting in changed people, processes or places in our lives.
Change Is a Positive Force.
Once you think about the reasons for change and why you’re feeling certain emotions, it becomes clear that change is a positive force in our lives. Even when change comes from need or necessity, it can and should be positive. In fact, your values, goals and vision that are leading you to where you want to be in life… they are probably the result of a desire to change.
If you want to get where you want to go, that journey begins at the end of your comfort zone.