Comfort Zone: Make Stretching Your Boundaries a Habit

The essence of stepping out of your comfort zone is to embrace new experiences. More so, to get to the state of optimal anxiety in a controlled and managed way; hence not stressing yourself out. Take time to reflect on your experiences so you can reap the merits, and apply them to your day to day activities. Then do something new, positive and interesting. Perhaps, make it a habit if you can; then try something new every week, or every month.

Never limit yourself to big or huge experiences. Maybe meditation pushes you out of your comfort zone just as much as bungee jumping. Try the former if you've already done the latter. The goal isn't to become an adrenaline junkie; you just want to learn what you're really capable of. However, it's important to return to a comfortable state from time to time and just relax. Hence, don't forget or fail to bring back as much as you can carry from those inspired, creative, productive, and slightly uncomfortable moments when you do.

Consequently, you can't live outside of your comfort zone all the time. You need to come back from time to time to process your experiences. The last thing you want is for the new and interesting, to quickly become commonplace and boring. The phenomenon, called hedonistic adaptation, is the natural tendency to be impressed by new things only to have the incredible become ordinary after a short time. This is why we can have access to the greatest repository of human knowledge ever created (the internet) at our fingertips (on our smartphones); yet, still get so bored that all we think of is how quickly we can get newer and faster access. In one way it drives us forward, but in another it keeps us from appreciating the subtle and the everyday.

You can fight this by trying new or smaller things. Ordering something new at a restaurant where you get the same thing every visit can be eye-opening, the same way visiting a new country or place can be. Hence, the both pushes you out of your comfortable spaces. Importantly, diversify the challenges you embrace so you don't just push your boundaries in the same direction. For instance, if you've been learning Latin-based languages and you find yourself bored, switch gears to a language with a completely different set of characters. More so, if you've taken up running, instead of just trying to run longer and farther, try challenging yourself to run on different terrain. You still get the challenge, but you broaden your horizons in a different way.

Beautiful morning to you this awesome Friday, and do have yourself excellent day. #DubemickyInspiringGreatnessDaily.