Let’s face it, working on becoming happier is challenging and it’s scary.
Every step towards happiness seems to be a step outside your comfort zone. It’s a place that scares us, a darkness we retreat from into complacency and unhappiness.
It need not be this way.
Let’s put your comfort zone into perspective:
Everything currently inside your comfort zone used to be outside it.
Think about your first day at school, your first kiss, or your first job. Remember how scared you were? Were the tears flowing that first time?
How about the first time you made love, left home to live on your own, or moved to a new town where you didn’t know anyone? Scared, weren’t you, even if you pretended you were tough.
Every first is a step outside your comfort zone but look back now. Where are you comfortable now? Are you comfortable in school, kissing and making love, going to work in your now home town?
Your comfort zone is a logbook of your successes, a record of every step you took outside of it that worked out.
Sure, sometimes you’ll fail. Not all fears are completely irrational but tell me, how many of those failures can you claim? What mistakes do you look back at today and say, “Gee, I failed at that and I’ll never try it again”? Not many, I’d bet.
Mistakes are there to help you learn and step more wisely, not to stop you from moving forward.
Your comfort zone isn’t fixed in size. It’s only by expanding what you can claim is inside your comfort zone that you’ll grow and feel fulfilled.
Happiness is when your life fulfills your needs. To fulfill those which you most desire, you’ll have to wrap your comfort zone comfortably around them.
The only thing holding you back is fear of the unknown. Overcome that, and your powers are limitless.
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the determination that something else is more important.” – Ambrose Redmoon
Isn’t your happiness more important?
P.S. Hat tip to Kenneth Vogt of Vera Claritas, whose article entitled “There’s No Such Thing As A Comfort Zone” sparked this idea.
