Your comfort zone is a trap designed to keep you stuck.

Let me explain.

Most people wake up every day and do the exact same things they did the day before. 

They wake up to the same thoughts.

They linger in the same feelings. 

They act upon the same routines,

Within the same environments,

Around the same types of people,

And they often make the exact same choices they made the day before. 

As we discussed in last week’s narrative, sometimes people choose to remain at the same level in their life and then the time runs out and it is game over. 

People get stuck in their comfort zone and equate the known as being better than the unknown. 

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, is an old proverb that was once told to me by an old boss and mentor. 

For a long time I believed that old proverb to be true. 

And yet, anyone who has ever created anything and brought forth something from within their imagination into their reality, had to do it in spite of their known reality. 

Anyone who created or invented anything that previously did not exist had to break free from the comfort offered by the known as they ventured into the unknown. 

What we often equate as comfortable (ie. full of ease) is sometimes what we have known and seen around us. 

Isn’t it interesting to consider that the words familiar, familiarity, and family all have similar origins? 

We learn as young children who we are, what to believe in, and what is possible for us by observing and listening to the people around us such as our family. And then it becomes familiar to us to act and operate in a certain way. 

We grow up and often reaffirm who we are, what we believe in, and what is possible for us, based on the familiar. And the familiar is comfortable. The familiar is what we know. 

The familiar does not necessarily mean enjoyable. It does not necessarily mean that our lives will have more of what we are inspired to have. 

More love 

More fulfillment

More serenity 

More prosperity 

More freedom

More abundance

More wonder

More awe

More joy

More peace

And so, we often need to look at what feels familiar and comfortable and question whether or not it continues to serve us in our lives. 

It is entirely possible to feel comfortable and familiar with thoughts, emotions, and feelings that are designed to keep us stuck in our lives, because that is what we know and have known. 

After last week’s narrative (located here for reference) my Mother asked me the following question:

How do I play or act so I can “move on up”?

She was referring to the analogy I was making of life being like a video game designed to take you through an action packed course (if you select that choice) and push you into new levels and worlds of your life. 

In order to move on up, in the game of life, one must push out of the boundaries of our comfort zone. 

What is a comfort zone? 

Your comfort zone is a psychological state where you feel at ease and in control. 

Within our comfort zone, we tend not to challenge ourselves and push past the boundaries of what is known and familiar to us. 

And, while our comfort zone is familiar, it does not mean that within that state we experience a greater capacity of enjoyment, wonder, and awe in our lives. 

In order to play the game of life and move forward into new levels, we must push past our comfort zone and willingly enter into the unknown.

In positive psychology, there are four identified zones:

Comfort Zone (the familiar)

Fear Zone (the voice in our head that tells us we can’t do it, and worries what the people around us will think and say)

Learning Zone (the stage where we learn through experience) 

Growth Zone (the stage where we live out our new reality and aspirations)

I decided to push out of my comfort zone at the age of thirty-eight, and travel by myself to a foreign country for the first time. This was a big push out of my comfort zone then. I had never traveled alone nor had I ever had dinner at a restaurant by myself. 

The moment I shared my plans with family and friends, the feedback received by a lot of people in my life was the same. Fears around safety. Questions around what I would do by myself. Some people voiced how impressed they were given they would never push out of their own comfort zones to attempt what I was doing. 

I was able to push out of the Fear Zone and booked a one way ticket in spite of the worries and fears that I and others had for me. 

The first 10 days of my trip ended up being part of my comfort zone. I was surrounded by new friends, I had a jam packed itinerary, and I had every moment of my day planned. Yes, I had traveled alone to a foreign country, but I had not made a big enough leap outside of the known and into the unknown.

I decided that in order to truly experience being alone, I would have to actually experience not only being alone but living without a plan, agenda, or itinerary. I would need to learn to live in the present and allow for life to unfold for me (and not to me). My decision was to push into the Learning Zone. 

For the next several weeks I engaged in a daily practice of not having a plan. It was an eye opening experience to realize how uncomfortable it was for me to live without a plan, intention, idea, or agenda in my life. I was actively engaged in learning how life happens without my guidance, control, or manipulation. I would wake up daily and other than my scheduled work, I would focus on not making any plans and remind myself to allow life to show up instead and guide my choices and actions. 

It was quite comical. The attempts that I made to plan (whether consciously or unconsciously) consistently backfired against me. And, when I was being responsive to life, everything would flow beautifully and often leave me in a higher state of wonder, awe, and enjoyment of life. The discoveries I was making about myself and life were astounding within the Learning Zone, and two months into this newfound daily practice of being present without a plan, I found myself knowing that my life would never be the same again. 

I had entered into the Growth Zone. 

What does this mean for you?

Your comfort zone is interconnected with your perception of yourself and the world around you.

These are all narratives designed to keep you where you are and they justify your actions (or lack thereof).

The truth is that we all have free will. 

Nothing will force you out of the known into the unknown. 

Personally, I think it’s healthy to question what feels familiar and comfortable. 

It is when we do not question why we are the way that we are, that our comfort zones can become traps designed to keep us from living our lives to our fullest potential.

Here are some ideas on how to move out of our comfort zone:

1. Change your daily routine 

Push yourself out of your daily comfort zone by altering your every day routine. 

Start a new daily habit and commit to this being a new addition to your daily routine. 

Meditation

Journaling

Exercising in the morning instead of at night (or vice versa)

Reading 10-20 pages every day 

Listen to audio books or podcasts while you drive

Write daily 

Paint

Whatever you decide for this new daily routine to be, the important thing is to commit to the action of doing this daily and that you find the time for this new routine even if it means waking up an hour earlier or going to sleep one hour later. 

Trust there will be resistance and that voice in your head will give you all of the reasons why you should quit, give up, skip a day, and even affirm that you are tired, run down, and need a break. 

Listen to that voice. 

Observe how it often tries to derail

And understand that it wants to keep you safely within the boundaries of your comfort zone. 

2. Create a bucket list of things to experience over the next 12 months 

Commit to accomplishing one item off your bucket list each month over the course of the next 12 months. 

Sign up for a personal training program

Start dance lessons

Enroll in the seminar

Take a trip to a place you’ve never been before

Go skydiving

Join a new club or organization in your town 

Enroll in that class to learn that skill you’ve always wanted to master 

Train for a marathon 

However big or small the items are doesn’t matter. 

What is important here is to list out 12 things you will do over the course of the next year, and to cross one item off the list each month. 

Life gets busy, and often one of the biggest excuses we fall into (which keeps us in our comfort zone) is believing that we lack time and energy. 

3. Change your environment

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. 

In this analogy, you are the flower. And, for you to reach your next level (and bloom), you must fix your environment. 

The word environment means the surroundings or conditions in which a person operates. 

Changing your environment doesn’t only have to mean your physical location (although it can mean that too). 

In my case, changing my environment has had a lot to do with changing my inner environment and my thoughts and beliefs. 

I realized several years ago that unless I reached for new and differing perspectives from those around me, I would remain in my comfort zone. It also doesn’t help that most of my family and friends remain in their comfort zone as well.  

Changing my inner environment has been a commitment to expanding my thought processes by consciously reading books, listening to podcasts, and working with my life coach. 

4. Pick one big goal to accomplish every single year 

Every single year, pick one big goal you want to accomplish for no other reason than to shock yourself out of your comfort zone. 

In 2021, I took a trip by myself. 

In 2022, I moved to a foreign country by myself.

In 2023, I created a new business.

In 2024, I launched my new business. 

Write the book

Launch the business 

Commence the side hustle

Train for an IronMan 

Go back to school

Learn a new skill

Start a podcast / youtube channel / tik tok account 

Put yourself out there in a big bold way for no other reason than to spark yourself out of your lull of your comfort zone and into something way out into the unknown. 

All of these four suggestions require new narratives to be written and old narratives to be dissolved. 

It is our old narratives that tell us that we can’t, we aren’t capable, we might fail, we have no time, we are tired, it’s too late, what’s the point, and that we are crazy (among other things). 

And yet, to move into the next level of our lives we must select to push beyond our limitations, beyond what is familiar, beyond what is comfortable, and beyond what is known. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether we succeed or fail. 

What matters is that we consciously live our lives in a way that motivates us, inspires us, and gives us access to all of the possibilities we can select in our lives. 

And, just like anything else. 

Our comfort zone boundaries shift. 

And, the more we expand out of them, the more levels and worlds we experience within our lifetime. 

My goal now is to find ease in the unknown. 

To experience being comfortable in the journey of creating from my imagination into my reality. 

And, to enjoy the daily experience of pushing out past the known into the unknown. 

I hope you give these suggestions a try and that you too, push out of your comfort zone and into more of whatever you are inspired to have in your life. 

With love,

Marissa