Is Your Comfort Zone a Superpower?

How many times a day do you hear people tell you to get out of your comfort zone? Supposedly, magic only happens outside your comfort zone. But, does it? Or have we just developed a serious underappreciation for our comfort zone?

I talk about this fairly regularly with some of my business buddies, and we agree that a comfort zone is a valuable resource to have, especially for people who have lived through trauma. Even the simple assumption that everybody HAS a comfort zone is uninformed and can make people doubt their sanity.

I don’t know about you, but I have been ridiculed more than once for not staring down my fears. For me, it all kinda falls in the same category as:

• if you’re not making money, you don’t have a business but an expensive hobby;
• any phrase that includes the word ‘hustle’;
• you HAVE to [insert self-proclaimed guru’s main product or service] if you want to succeed!
• anyone who pushes the idea that 7-figures is the only valid measure of success.

It’s all so one-dimensional and takes the humanity out of everything we do and try to achieve. But let’s stick with the comfort zone for a moment and the pied pipers who are trying to tempt us out of them.

The assumption that the pied pipers make, is that comfort is a bad thing. Comfort means that we don’t challenge ourselves, that we don’t learn new things or take risks. What that translates to, in my brain at least, is that there is a need to overcome our weaknesses. Get over your fear of video already! Stop being so introverted, the algorithm doesn’t like that!

What if everything the pied pipers have been saying… is wrong?

What if comfort is, in fact, a superpower?

What happens when we stop trying to overcome our weaknesses and fears and instead lean into our strengths and talents?

Could we possibly find more sustainable and gentle ways to run our lives and our businesses that actually feel fun and easy? What if we stretch our comfort zone while relying on our strength and expand it that way, without activating our nervous system and (re-)traumatising ourselves in the process?

Honestly, I think being in comfort can be the most empowering thing to be.

When our default setting is comfort and a parasympathetic nervous system, we have energy and confidence to deal with something stressful that triggers our sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response). With a body and mind that isn’t already run ragged by constantly pushing yourself, we are much better equipped to face challenges and do necessary jobs that we feel less confident in doing.

Fatime Losonci supports introverted coaches in becoming better at promoting themselves by using personality to get the right clients. I have been her guinea pig for a while and it's been so powerfully transformative and we've not even gotten to the halfway mark yet!

Tracy Borreson is on a mission to light as many personal brands on fire as possible! One of the ways she helps people do that is with her No-Pitch-Networking events, that I highly recommend you check out. Another is by giving you tips to become more memorable.