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Grade school and college pushes us out of our comfort zone almost everyday. Be it working with a new group, being bad at something new, or speaking in front of the class, there is an omnipresent force challenging you.
After formal schooling is over, that force mostly disappears. Especially with remote work nowadays, you don’t need to go anywhere or do anything you’re not comfortable with. It becomes incredibly easy to live just within your comfort zone yet this plateaus your personal development.
It’s common knowledge that we learn and grow only outside of our comfort zone — when we are put in new situations we don’t know the script for or when we try a new activity we are beginners at. Yet, when left to our discretion, we (at least I) often choose the path of least resistance and bury ourselves in the metaphorical cozy blankets of our comfort zone.
While it’s my M.O. to take the path of least resistance, I have been actively trying to challenge myself more. Traveling is a great way to do this because it removes the comfort you have in knowing where everything is and how everything works right off the bat and puts you in a position of growth and learning by default.
Whenever I think to myself, “I don’t know about that…” or “I’m worried I’ll look dumb”, I try to push myself to at least try things. This has resulted in me being more confident in traveling and more comfortable in being uncomfortable in the process.
However, I’ve found that there is a very fine line between challenging yourself and forcing yourself to try something.
I recently went out to a DJ party sort of event with some new friends despite my preference for jazz, film scores, and John Mayer. There were good drinks and fun remixed music from every decade, but I found myself standing around trying to drink to enjoy it more. It was super loud and I just wasn’t ”feeling the vibe” as they say, so I decided to leave. In the Uber back, I realized, this isn’t the productive sort of challenging myself, this was trying to force something I didn’t enjoy anyway.
I’m glad I gave the party a try and I’m glad I keep challenging myself to try new things and get out of my comfort zone. Yet, going forward, I’m going to listen to my own thoughts and find the difference between challenging myself and forcing myself into something before doing it. We all have preferences and to force ourselves into trying things over and over again that we know we don’t enjoy isn’t going to help us learn and grow — it’s going to make us crave our comfort zone more.
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