If it doesn't scare you, is it even worth doing?

I’ve had a few occasions this past week to reflect on how powerful it can be to push ourselves beyond what we are currently good at, what we are experienced at, and what we are comfortable doing.

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Life can be hard in some respects but as the saying goes, “smooth seas never made a good sailor”.

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You may have also heard this phrase: “there is no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone”.

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It’s a cliché.

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Like most clichés it’s true.

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Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with being comfortable. We all need a comfort zone!

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But when we want to improve at something, or we want to experience something new, we must push beyond what we are familiar with; what we are comfortable doing. We must make our zone of comfort bigger, more expansive.

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To learn, to get better at something, or to progress in anything, always means a jump from the ‘known’ to the ‘unknown’.

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If you think about all the things that you’ve ever learned to do well, there was a point where you stepped beyond your boundaries, through the fear, or the discomfort, and spent some time being a little bit uncomfortable.

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Don’t get me wrong – as I said - ‘comfortable’ isn’t necessarily ‘bad’.

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It’s like when you go to the gym and you’re exercising – if you keep doing the same exercises in the same way, week-in and week-out, you’ll stay pretty fit.

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Great, right?

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But when you want to get even fitter, you need to stop exercising and start training – that means increasing your exercise, increasing the weights you use, increasing the resistance you’re pushing against.

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We don’t progress in anything unless we push beyond our current boundaries.

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And we must do it in a smart way. We know how far to go because, if we push too far, we go waaaaaay beyond the growth zone and into what they call the panic zone … that’s not good!

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We must be uncomfortable enough to grow but not so uncomfortable that we overwhelm ourselves.

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So, what keeps us in our comfort zone?

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It can be different things.

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It might be a lack of desire (nobody changes or develops unless they want too).

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But most often it is a little voice in the back of our heads that says something like “I shouldn’t do that”, “I’m not good enough”, or “someone like me could never be able to do something like that”.

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That voice affects almost all of us to some degree. Some people call it ‘imposter syndrome’, and I was speaking a few week's ago to a professional who had it in bucketloads – to the point that her she had sold herself short in her business plan.

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The thing to remember, when we hear that voice, is that it means well. It wants to protect us. It's a voice from our past. It's our mother's voice. Our father's voice. An older sibling's voice. Someone who looked out for us and protected us when we were young but, in so doing, unintentionally established scripts that limit us, that tell us we cannot -or should not- attempt something scary.

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But that voice doesn’t know what it’s talking about. It is talking to a little kid that no longer exists, not the adult you now are. That voice is holding us back.

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When we hear that voice, we must question it.

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Ask “what’s the worst that could happen?”

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99 times out of 100, the worst really isn’t all that bad.

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Like Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened”.

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Say to that well-meaning inner voice:

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• “Thank you”. (Remember – the voice has your best interests at heart, but it’s being over-protective).
• “Don’t worry. I’ve got this”. (You really have!)
• “It’s not as scary as it looks”. (It really isn’t!)

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Let’s all have a fantastic week and do at least one thing that scares us (in a good way!)

#business #personaldevelopment #gettingthingsdone #sales #coaching#lawyerlife?

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I’m a business coach and the International Director of gunnercooke LLP. I also lead gunnercooke’s Talent Team and I always want to talk to experienced, ethically driven, legal professionals.?

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Book a free call with me or a member of the Talent Team. It’s completely confidential and zero pressure – just a ‘virtual coffee’ in which you can tell us more about your journey so far, and you get to find out a bit more about how this model might work for you.

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Links in bio.

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