6 Strategies to leave your comfort zone

Many people will speak about comfort zones, but that does not always mean they understand their own or how to get out of them. Comfort zones are situations that are familiar and often turn into habits. Who truly knows what is good for the self? You know what's best for you, but you do not always listen to what the heart knows.  Venturing beyond comfort zones enables you to grow.

When it comes to stepping outside a comfort zone, each person is capable, but that does not mean they are always willing or have the awareness to know how it helps.  To get the ball rolling, you benefit from learning to follow the thread back to understand your current mindset and the underlying reasons for it.  Consider these strategies to step outside your comfort zone;

1) Notice where you are.  Self-awareness has many levels. To recognize the obvious as well as subtle nuances helps you to clarify how and why you feel as you do where you are. This includes decriptive things like physical address, geography, conditions. How you describe this adds layers and labels to your perceived identity, that is, how you view yourself as a point of reference.

2) Pinpoint the why. Environments and self-image begin to feel comfortable due to mental conditioning.  This relates back to how you feel. Some part of you begins to believe it is good for you, desirable or helpful for you to stay where you are. Your perceptions may reflect elements of truth or illusions, but your action will align with beliefs. In essence, you imagine reasons for anxiety and insecurity with mental limits when none of these things exist.

3) Identify a sense of risk. A sense of risk triggers fear of threat or loss.  As you imagine new kinds of experiences, part of you may be receptive, but if a more dominant side resists changes, then you are less likely to do so.  The irony is that how you think and feel may not be grounded in reality.  You may assume making a certain choice will necessarily have negative repercussions when this is not the case.  All or none of your assumptions may be true. Yet, without further investigation, you may be permitting fear to control you.

4) Attune to energy. To become more self-aware of energy flow requires you to connect your actions and self-conscious awareness with what seems natural or going against the grain.  Review how a sense of time, perceived abilities and self-confidence, all play a role in your decision to perceive challenges and take steps to repond or not.  How you experience energy influences whether you take steps to exert control or respond differently.

5) Align the body & mind. Ever heard the phrase the mind is willing but the body is not or vice versa? Adjustments are required to coordinate the functioning of different parts of you.  The answers lie inside.  Sometimes guidance is helpful to navigate through obstacles. Getting back in touch with your natural state requires you work though conditioning on many levels to dissolve what no longer works.  No single recipe is the answer for all. Embracing change is a process.

6) Awaken to sources of joy. From the moment you choose to reframe struggle, you begin to realize the very experience itself is like powerful medicine.  To get this far helps you to realize you already access wisdom.  Make smooth transitions. Guide yourself to empowerment with love.  

"Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort." -Peter McWilliams