Don't Get Comfortable

What’s So Wrong with Being Comfortable?

I like to be comfortable. I think there’s something innately human about the desire for security and stability. Comfort drove the advancements of housing from natural shelters to portable huts more suitable for following food sources when populations dried up. Comfort drove the innovation of agriculture and water irrigation giving ownership over the food supply. Comfort brought the concept of land ownership as dependence on agriculture grew, leading to a complete shift in social structures and hierarchies. Comfort drove the alienation from production ultimately reducing the potential of the individual, eliminating opportunities for creative and personal growth. Comfort created modern consumerism with its cycles of temporary satisfaction leading to our upgrade-obsessed, throw away culture, and our inaction in the face of alarming climate shifts and broader societal changes. You get the point.

All Things in Moderation.

I get it. Change is scary. I was recently promoted into a leadership role, which was simultaneously very exciting and incredibly intimidating. Despite having prior leadership experience, this role feels entirely different — like for the first time, I’m entirely on my own; the buck stops here. For years, I had honed my skills and stayed on top of industry trends, mastering new tools and branching into related disciplines as a means of staying relevant in an ever-changing field. But this new position will certainly demand more than just technical expertise; it requires a complete mindset shift.

I had grown comfortable in my previous role, where tasks came naturally to me, almost instinctively. I could perform them with my eyes closed. Now, however, I’m in uncharted territory. This new role forces me to think more deliberately, step outside my established ways, and face the unsettling feeling of uncertainty. For the first time in years, I can’t rely solely on my instincts. Growth, it seems, is not just a byproduct of this role but an essential requirement for success.

Be Like Water

Whenever things are stressful, or unexpected complications arise in our lives I often say jokingly to my wife that we should “be like water” – in other words go with the flow maaaan. Though this started as a tongue-in-cheek tension reliever I’ve really come to find value in this mindset. As a young college student studying graphic design, I fell in love with the hands-on processes through which we were taught the principles of design. Everything we created had a focus on the tangible —?hand drawn letterforms, fresh ink rolled onto wooden block type, manually-bound books filled with volumes of painstakingly constructed grid explorations. I was never more comfortable than I was spending my weekends in that letterpress room, and I knew I had found my calling as a print designer.

Then reality hit.

As soon as I graduated and started looking for jobs, I realized quickly that the landscape had shifted under my feet and if I wanted to be marketable in a competitive field during an economic recovery I was going to have to adapt. In that moment I could have been stubborn and stayed in my comfort zone, clinging to my newfound identity as a print designer but thankfully I went the other direction —?I leveraged that one HTML class I took as a lark freshman year and landed an internship building direct marketing emails. A far cry from where I thought my education was taking me but that one decision to step outside my comfort zone launched my career. Soon after I found my first job as a website designer, and I haven’t stopped stepping out of my comfort zone since.

When I was a young man entering the workforce for the first time my dad told me the key to being successful was to make yourself irreplaceable—to learn everything you can to be a value to your employer. Thanks, Dad.

The Transition to Leadership

It was no surprise to me that this mindset would prove immensely useful as a young professional —?after all, more utility clearly leads to more opportunities. What I hadn’t considered was how this broad range of experience would lend itself to leading and coaching others. We’ve all had that boss—no need to name names—that just didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. They had clearly never performed the role they were tasked with managing, and it showed. How was that experience for you?

As my list of direct reports grew and became more diverse, I found myself at risk of recreating this same dynamic. I recall early on being asked to mentor a young video editor and help them to create more dynamic content. Now I had never been responsible for editing a video, I’d never opened Premiere Pro, and unless you count a Flash class that I took in high school when it was still a Macromedia product (shut up), I didn’t know a thing about animation. But I had plenty of experience crafting compelling narratives so no problem, happy to jump in and help a young creative.

We hit an immediate wall when that old feeling came back, I didn’t know if what I was asking of them was a 5-minute task for a 5-hour task. I was out of my element. If they told me something wasn’t possible was that because I was asking for something above and beyond or was it just their inexperience talking? I had no way to know until I started to dig into the materials myself. I couldn’t teach them something I didn’t know, it was crucial for me to have some base familiarity with the subject. I had to step outside my comfort zone.

Add one more tool to the toolkit.

Get Uncomfortable

That’s the whole point, right? That’s really what I’m getting at. I see so many young professionals falling into the trap of thinking they’re one thing and one thing only and that’s the one thing they’ll be. End of discussion.

In a competitive job market where skills are a dime a dozen the barrier to entry is non-existent it’s becoming more important than ever to learn to differentiate yourself from the competition.

So, what steps can you take to challenge yourself, to grow in your career, and step outside of your comfort zone?

Make Yourself Irreplaceable Technology is evolving daily. It’s up to you to stay on top of it, incorporate it into your workflow.

Skill Up! Start Small Look for skills adjacent to the things you’re already doing. Look for new ways of doing the things you already do. Challenge yourself.

Know Your Limitations We can’t be experts in everything. And some things are just beyond us, it’s okay! I tried and failed on multiple occasions before I accepted that working in 3D just isn’t something I’m going to be good at.

Seek Support If you want to be the best, play with the best. Surround yourself with people who are doing the things you want to be doing. Look for mentors who can guide you to where you want to go.

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Have you ever taken on a challenge at work that scared you? What did you learn from it? Share your story in the comments!

#Leadership #CareerGrowth #LeadershipDevelopment #ProfessionalGrowth #Design #GraphicDesign #CareerAdvice