Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone — Transition Is Important As A Heroine

Here we go again! Are you hearing it as much as I am – this complaint, this worry about Covid, the Delta variant, making us change our plans…yet, again?

We like closure, we humans. We like things to be over – and this one just isn’t getting over, is it? We are in transition… we have been here for almost two years now. Being in transition calls for flexibility, resilience, adaptability, patience, a sense of humor, faith – just to name a few qualities that help us to survive these kind of times.

get out of your comfort zone

It's Time To Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

It’s no coincidence that these qualities define Heroines. Heroines are most often in transition because they are growing; they are leaving their comfort zones. They are getting a nudge, an intuition, a big inner push (sometimes, outer) to make a change in their lives – they are getting a Call to change some aspect of themselves or their life.

Lately, I’ve been summarizing my work as this: I help women in transition. I always put things in context of the Heroine’s Journey because it’s a useful framework to describe life’s bigger picture but when you get down to it, women who are transforming themselves are always “traveling”, on a journey, are in transition. And let’s just admit it - that can be daunting.

Here are some thoughts about transition that I hope will be helpful to you during this time of major transition:

When I was an organizational development consultant, I often worked with groups of people in transition who were undergoing some sort of situational change (getting a new boss; going through a layoff; reorganizing). I would reference the work of William Bridges, Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes – which is a classic.

Why it is important to get out of your comfort zone?

One of the best things I learned from his work is that there is a process to Change: first you need to have a good ending to what you’re leaving; then you’re in the “neutral zone” where things are still in play as you haven’t landed yet; and then there’s the good beginning. (Kind of sounds like the Heroine’s Journey, doesn’t it?

Leaving your Comfort Zone (ending); on the Road of Adventure (neutral zone) and Crossing the Return Threshold (good beginning)).

He tells us that the emotional, more difficult part of change isn’t the change itself, it is the emotions that surface as we go through these three parts: grieving what we’re letting go of – how we handle the neutral zone where things aren’t defined and then the unknown of the new beginning. And, no surprise, we all handle it differently.

One key learning with the groups I worked with was that each person in the room could be going through the same change in the organization, like the reorganization of their department, but all of them would experience their transition, as they traversed it, differently.

How do I move out of my comfort zone?

So, how does this help me, Susanna, in my life, right now – dealing with this crazy pandemic.

We know it feels damn uncomfortable here in the “neutral zone” as we keep living in transition.

My approach to dealing with change – and with you this will be easier to explain than to a group of anxious people in a conference room thinking that maybe they’ll be laid off the next day – is to encourage people to “try it out.”

Yes, try out change! And I have an exercise for this (of course!) “The Comfort Zone Challenge.” Get used to practicing changing things up. Make little changes at first – see how it goes, then up the ante. When I’ve “played” the Comfort Zone Challenge with heroines in my school they’ve challenged themselves in these “little” way (remember: what’s little to some might not be little to others):

  • Sitting at a different table with people I don’t know in the faculty cafeteria.
  • Having my kids cook one recipe a week for dinner.
  • Let my hairdresser know I’m gay.
  • Clear the piles of paper in my bedroom.
  • Allow myself to do my art one day a week.

The Benefits Of Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone

It can be the littlest thing. It’s a way of exercising your change muscle – you try out a new dance class and feel foolish because everyone knows more than you do. You take a beginner French class and make a pronunciation mistake and the teacher corrects you and moves on. It’s not the end of the world.

You paint a nude in your beginning “Painting for the True Blue Beginner” class and you think it’s awful (if that model ever saw what I did to her!) and you come home and throw it out. All new things that I did, changes that I tried out in order to stretch myself.

It is true, the more you “practice change” in this way, the more accustomed you are to those feelings of anxiety and worry about looking stupid, not knowing what to do – and after a while, you realize those feelings are part of the process and it just isn’t such a big
deal for you anymore to make some changes in your life. And you realize the worst thing would be not to try at all!

Here’s the exercise as I do it in my School for Real-Life Heroines.

Why don’t you try it by clicking here?

Choose 3 ways you will leave your comfort zone and make the following commitment:

I, (your name)__________________, agree to expand my comfort zone and move towards increasing my own power, confidence, and faith in myself. By ________________ I will stretch beyond my comfort zone by: _________________

Here are some ideas to spark your thinking:

Get Out Of That Rut Oscar Wilde said, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

  • So stop getting up at 6:05.
  • Get up at 5:06.
  • Walk a mile at dawn.
  • Find a new way to drive to work.
  • Switch chores with your spouse Next Saturday.
  • Buy a wok.
  • Study wildflowers.
  • Stay up alone all night.
  • Read to the blind.
  • Subscribe to an out-of-town paper.
  • Canoe at midnight.
  • Don’t write to your congressman, take a whole scout troop to see her.
  • Learn to speak Italian.
  • Teach some kid the thing you do best.
  • Listen to two hours of uninterrupted Mozart.
  • Take up aerobic dancing.
  • Leap out of that rut.
  • Savor life.

Remember, we only pass this way once.

And one more thing for those of you who really want to get into how you respond to change…another classic in the literature of change and how we humans deal with it, is Robert Kriegel and David Brandt’s book, Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers.

Their advice? There should be no “sacred cows” – ways to be and do that can’t ever be changed, or at least, questioned. Their advice: Question everything! They encourage a beginner’s mind because beginners ask the best questions. Experts see things the way
they always have. Beginners will notice something new.

Kriegel and Brandt have a quiz you can take to examine your key change-readiness traits: Resourcefulness, Optimism, Adventurousness, Drive, Adaptability, Confidence, and Tolerance for Ambiguity. They give you the optimal range for each of these.

It's Time To Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

I confess, I need to work on my Adventurousness but I’m over the top with Optimism! See how well equipped you are for change. I think you’re more ready than you think. After all, you are a Heroine.

Learn More About The School For Real-Life Heroines

 

Equipping women with the tools to navigate their way. Take our DIY course, join an accountability group, or attend a webinar. Let us illuminate your path to purpose and ignite your journey to a fulfilling life.

 

It's Time To Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone

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