Did you ever leave your comfort zone? Did you ever challenge yourself to try something new? If not, you hadn’t the chance to experience the joy of leaving the comfort zone.
I’m glad that I had a great coach some years ago, who really helped me to do the first step. The first time I consciously left my comfort zone was during a training course, when I was working for Volkswagen. Every attendee had to do something once a day, which was completely out of their comfort zone. Something, that he thought he won’t be able to do in front of all of us. One guy was praying another one read a book and one girl even started to dance. I gave a talk about the Internet in English (I’m German, you know ;)). At that time, my English was quite rusty, and I really had to fight for every word. But soon I found out, that it wasn’t that bad. If I forgot a word, I was able to paraphrase it, or I just started a new sentence. Nobody threw rotten vegetables at me, and nobody laughed at me. After the second time, I even started to enjoy it. The third time it was already fun. In the end, I was able to broaden my comfort zone. And now, a few years later, I’m actually speaking at conferences.
Since that time, I regularly challenge myself to leave my comfort zone to explore new areas, to learn something new and to help me with my self development. What I love the most when doing it, is the thrill in the beginning and in the end, the joy of a new area inside my increased comfort zone.
My challenge for today? I’ll start to write stories for children, about a guy named Pilli Pulli Kastropi. He is a famous character in the stories I tell my kids every evening. If you’re German and need some stories to tell your kids tomorrow evening, follow this guy on Twitter 🙂
But now it’s up to you. Leave your comfort zone today, e.g by giving uncalled feedback…
I had this experience when I came to the next to last employer and was in the situation that I was the developer who develops and fixes the stuff the others had not the experience for. It was hard fight, because it was not in a coaching enviroment where you can do failures. Everybody supposed me to do it right. Really not a comfort zone. But a great experience for me. Since then I tried to do not visit the comfort zone again 🙂
Thanks for your comment. I like to be in my comfort zone because it is also a place to charge my batteries. This is neccessary for me to have enough energy to leave it again.
I use holidays for that or in my new position as quality and testing evangelist I use coding for recreation.
Great stuff, as always! And a nice new headline your blog has now…
take care
-Olaf
Yes, I got a hint by a friend to change the headline 😉