Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Dear loving people,

One of the biggest obstructions to achieving ones goal in life is the disturbing craving to stay inside our comfort zone while doing it. I must tell you that it is practically impossible.  Martin Luther King says “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Growing up as a young secondary school student, I read about development work in Africa and told myself I wanted to become an authority in the development arena. As naïve as I was, I shared this dream with a close friend who was quick to jump in saying we shared the same dream. Deep within me, I knew this was a kind of “calling” so to speak.

Leaving the university much latter, I started off with a volunteer position in a nongovernmental organization at a monthly stipend of $20. The job was challenging, stretching me to limits but I loved it because in any case, I needed experience. My friend on hearing this did not only laugh at me but called me names. He thought I had gone nuts accepting such a pay as a university graduate. He remained in the job market, searching for a possible best-paying job and being fed fat by his parents.

My friend soon got fed-up looking for a job and decided to do business; he tried working on some business ideas but however could never do it.  He could not muster the motivation to develop a good business proposal.  You see, while I was moving on gathering the experience needed to move me closer to my dream, my friend on the other hand was trying to achieve success in building his own business within his comfort zone.  It simply didn’t work. 

The fundamental problem with my friend was that he had great business ideas but the fear of failure had a really strong hold on him and he never really gave it his all.  In many ways he was a mess.  He allowed the fear of working for a meager salary as a university graduate to get hold of him, and he crumbled.  So when all other options failed him, he eventually got a job.  But guess what…

Five solid years had gone by; I was into my third job working for a UN agency with an excellent salary. My disoriented friend was feeling so miserable in a low paying job because of little experience.  He decided to quit again.  Yet this time it was much harder for him, having failed the last time, he learned from his mistakes and put together an action plan to improve his chances of success this time… he went back to a professional school.

While my experience sounds as if it were all some icing on the cake, I must tell you that I didn’t find it easy growing up the ladder. I never let fear hold me back; I really stretched my comfort zone in so many ways to remain performant and to be counted as a professional worth investing in.  As a matter of fact, I was steadfast on Orison Swett Marden’s advice “Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.” At some point in time, I even went back to school to be trained in a completely new field in order to stay on top.

The secret in all of this was stepping out of my comfort zone instead of letting my fears choke my creativity and my abilities.  So if you’re feeling stuck right now or in a groove, then you need to regularly get out of your comfort zone. Remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson “We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”