How the comfort zone is damaging you

The topic of this article was inspired by an uncanny observation that I happened to make about myself.

The observation?

I noticed that I'm happier the more I'm subject to discomfort. This became increasingly apparent to me during my first year of college. Throughout high school, I was always that guy who had a lot of potentials but didn’t really make use of it all that much. It was not until college that I wanted to really change my life. I was in a new institution, a new country, a new city, and a completely new environment compared to that which I was used to in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I took this opportunity to reinvent myself, specifically improving the academic side to match the true potential I assume I have.

So, for the past 10 months, I’ve been pushing the limits – studying till midnight, watching useful documentaries, eating healthy, and generally being fully occupied in the discipline of self-improvement.

In order to do all of that, I was constantly out of my comfort zone which I’m accustomed to being in. For the first few days, it was tiring and stressful. However, as the days went by, I got used to it and it was almost like I was able to form a direct relationship between being uncomfortable and upgrading myself. 10 months down the line, I’m here feeling incredible. I’m energetic, optimistic, and I wake up without feeling tired since I’m ready to tackle the day as I know I have a lot to do.

So in this article, I’m going to outline a few things that I’ve discovered about the comfort zone and how I think you can start living life on your terms, instead of living life on life’s terms.

So here’s what I’ve discovered about the comfort zone

In life, everything you’re physically capable of doing falls in one of 2 categories:

·        Inside the comfort zone

·        Outside the comfort zone

The things that are within the comfort zone are easy and take minimal or no effort to do, and there is no mental resistance in the way of doing the tasks within the comfort zone. Examples could be watching TV, sleeping or perhaps driving.

The things that are outside the comfort zone tend to require balance, more patience, persistence and determination. Take the example of running – it’s more physically strenuous, requires more preparation, makes you lose your breath. But here’s the catch! Running is actually good for you. After running consistently for a while, you’re happier, healthier and your outlook on life is better and more optimistic.

The comfort zone is horrendous at telling you what you should do and what you shouldn’t. The only thing the comfort zone is concerned with is keeping YOU inside it. When you’re inside it, it makes sure that the things outside of it are extremely uncomfortable and difficult to do. If you don’t do anything about it, it's going to shrink further and further, gradually making you lazier and more unproductive. This happens to a lot of people. In my own life for example, at one point, I happened to get addicted to mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and after some time I realised that things that used to be just slightly out of my comfort zone had moved further away. Things like a minor revision of what I learnt at school seemed almost impossible as I unknowingly became soft, lazy, unproductive and not committed to what was really useful.

Using the comfort zone to your advantage

So we’ve learned that the comfort zone is terrible at telling you what you should do and what you shouldn’t. Basically, we need a solution to this problem of not having a proper guide that tells you what to do and what not to do – we need a more reliable guide for making decisions, and my solution to this is making decisions based on your vision. Figure out the kind of person you desire to become – the skills you want to learn, the traits you want to adopt, and the qualities you want to possess. Since you’re likely to have acquired knowledge regarding the comfort zone after reading this article, realise that the discomforts you tend to experience in your pursuit to achieve your vision are merely in your mind, and not real obstacles. By adopting this approach, your comfort zone is going to expand, and the things that initially seemed agonizing will eventually become pleasant and dare I say, COMFORTABLE!