In times of stress, the comfort zone is a good place to retreat. The benefits of stepping outside have been well known by psychologists. The clinical psychologist advises on how well it is serving you. She says that the comfort zone can become a trap if you are afraid.
People can be stimulated by facing their fears or trying something that is not comfortable. Adaptation and stimulation are important parts of our wellbeing. We can get stagnant, and it is about growing and finding different ways to be, which allows us to have a different life experience.
She says that facing fears can increase confidence and self-esteem, and that achieving a goal is associated with a release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone. You start to feel better about yourself, because you know what you can do and are willing to take risks. You have more energy. It is a kind of domino effect.
Susan Jeffers wrote Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, which advised people to try something small or bold outside of their comfort zone. It isn't about being afraid as if we could control all of human evolution. People often ask how they can prevent themselves from having those kinds of fearful responses. The director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan, and author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, says that his initial reaction was that he wouldn't want to live life without fear. Fear is a safety mechanism, but it can sometimes become miscalibrated so that the fear doesn't match the reality of the circumstance.
If you think bungee jumping will improve your life, you don't have to jump out of a plane. He says that it is about facing the fears, or overcoming the discomfort, that prevents us from doing the things that are important for our wellbeing, our relationships and our performance. You want to regulate the fear in those instances.
Different things are daunting to different people and there is a spectrum to their severity. It could be going on a date, giving a presentation at work, or having a difficult conversation with a relative. It could be making a big decision, such as leaving a relationship or a job. Getting up an hour earlier to exercise might not be a big deal, but it could still bring benefits to your life.
It is hard to generalize about the psychological effect of facing fears or stepping outside the comfort zone, but doing it can change the way you think. You have a mental representation that tells you something is dangerous when you are afraid. If you go through that situation and learn that it wasn't as bad as you thought, that will update the mental portrayal of the situation. A better social life, a pay rise, more intimacy in a relationship, a new skill, are more tangible potential rewards for stepping outside your comfort zone.
In her book Fear Less, performance psychologist Pippa Grange shows how living in a fear culture affects our lives. You have stayed small in some ways because it may have shrunk you, limiting your potential and what you can achieve. Fear can make you over-control yourself and the people around you. It can cause you to feel shame. All of these things make you feel like a failure as a human being. Grange says that many of the fears that keep us safe are not good enough. Grange suggests that you explore the fear, face the impact it has on your life, then replace it with something, such as a different story, or a sense of purpose or humour.
Don't view failure as failure, get comfortable with the idea, and try something new. We go in with the idea that we should be able to do it. Why would we know how to do it outside of our comfort zone? That is the whole process.
Break down the uncomfortable action into steps if you want to expand your comfort zone. People think of going from zero to 100 as opposed to the different steps in between. Exposure and habituation is a cognitive behavioural therapy technique that helps you build up to what you want to do. You have an opportunity to celebrate the little wins that give you a boost of confidence and energy, which makes it exciting.
Different tools work for different people in different situations, and there is a bit of self-experimentation that is required. Exposure is one way to show how our fear responses are out of sync with the actual danger. When confronted with those situations, we quickly learn they are not so bad.
He suggests that you coach yourself through a situation. He believes that we are better at giving advice to other people than to ourselves. What would you say to someone else? You can use your own name: 'All right, here's how you're going to manage the situation.' This is called distanced self-talk. The link between using a name and thinking about someone else is very strong in the mind, which is one of the reasons we think it is useful. It helps you think more rationally about the situation.
A fear can be turned into a challenge. In a situation, we ask ourselves two questions: what is required of me and do I have the resources to deal with it. If you determine that you can't do it, that's a threat response and it's associated with negative behavioral and physiological reactions. It is a challenge response if you switch the answer to "Yes, I can do this". It can help with the challenge response. You can change the way you think about a situation.
If you are ready to step outside your comfort zone, you can start now.
