Here's The Truth About Stepping Out Of Your Comfort Zone That No One Talks About
The magic
happens outside of your comfort zone. Or does it?
It was a chilly March
evening when I landed at JFK.
Was it chilly,
though? Honestly, I don't remember. After spending nine hours in a plane
crammed with Russian tourists and Brighton Beach locals, 30 excruciating
minutes on the border, and then messing about the airport for an hour with no
Wi-Fi signal trying to find the people who were supposed to pick me up, my mind
was too busy to register small things like the weather.
"Welcome to the
United States. Enjoy your stay!"
The jolly line
pronounced with a heavy Russian accent by one of the flight attendants was
echoing in my brain. She may as well have welcomed me to Mars, I couldn't have
cared less.
Because to me, it
wasn't the destination that mattered.
It was the fact that after this, my life would never be the
same.
Now, don't let this
intimate description of my first few hours in the "promised land"
throw you off. The details are not important here.
My goal is to talk
about a universal experience you and others have faced many times in the span
of your lives. The experience that can be delicately fitted into the following
line:
"Magic happens
outside of your comfort zone."
Blah! To be honest, I
was never a firm believer of this philosophy. Yes, it sounds daring, but being
the cynical type of person that I am, it was always kind of hard to align
myself with something hipsters and DIY goddesses stick on every artisanal piece
of crap they make.
And I have to admit
that stepping out of my comfortable bubble and into the unknown didn't make me
less cynical than before. But — there's always a but — I can't deny the
goodness it brought me.
Naturally,
experiencing such a revelation made me feel the need
to share it with someone. So, let me convince you to take chances
more often while sparing you the rainbows and unicorns and sticking to the
stone-cold truth.
Here's what stepping out of your comfort zone is actually
going to be like ...
You will feel lonely.
You know how they say
that family and friends are the most precious things you have in life? Well,
sadly, not even the two humongous suitcases I took with me to New York could
fit these valuables.
And while, for me, it
is the physical distance from my loved ones that caused the blues, stepping out
of your comfort zone can make you feel lonely in a variety of ways.
Because, ultimately,
choosing to do something new, go someplace new or to besomeone new means to
single yourself out from everything and everyone you were familiar with before.
You are starting from zero, with zero. And don't fool yourself — even if your
loved ones support you, it is still a battle that you'll have to fight on your
own.
You will feel vulnerable.
Let's take a stroll down my memory lane. I come from a
relatively small city in Lithuania. Well, compared to the United States, my entire
post-Soviet country is a drop in the ocean with its 3 million people. Because,
hey, isn't that the population of NYC's Chinatown alone?
So you can try to
imagine the cultural shock I got from moving to this "belly button of the
world." Everything was new to some extent. So, naturally, everything was a
trigger.
Being outside of your
comfort zone will sometimes make you feel incredibly vulnerable. Because you're
no longer "in the know." Because you are afraid to make mistakes,
even though you're doing something for the very first time. Because there are
people who are so much better than you and it makes you feel like a dum-dum.
You will hate it. Sometimes to the point where you'll just
want to quit.
There are times on
the train when I think I've had enough with this city. These people, constantly
rushing like they're all 15 minutes late to some important event. These smells,
noises, neon lights ...
"It was so much
easier back home. So much better," I think to myself.
Stepping in the
unknown will most likely make you regret it at some point. It will make you
ponder about ALL the things you left behind, all the good things you might've
lost to take a chance on something that's more ephemeral than the vapor rising
from your morning latte.
Tip: Don't be
surprised if it happens multiple times a day.
But it's all good. You know why?
Because all of these
harsh, awful experiences will get you closer to understanding the real meaning
of that "promised magic" that happens outside of your comfort zone.
You will realize that magic is not the
ability to succeed.
Frankly speaking, chances are high that you will fail at whatever you so
desperately strived for in the first couple of months.
But even then you
will realize that the real magic lies in the new things
you discover about yourself along the way:
— the fact of how
many great ideas your mind can fathom in solitude. How it finds the most
brilliant answers to nearly impossible problems when it is left alone to sink
or swim.
— the fact of how
strong and enduring you actually are. How pain, fear, and doubt are just tiny
pebbles on your road to happiness.
— the fact of how
open your heart can be to new experiences, new people, and new ways of thinking
and doing. And how that openness leads you to create bonds stronger than ever.
— the fact that it's
really hard to evaluate something when you are actively experiencing it on a
day-to-day basis. How important it is to step aside every now and then, gain
perspective, and reevaluate things.
TL;DR: Do not read this. Better, go on and do this. Whether it's buying a
differently flavored scone, talking to that hot stranger on the street, or
moving across the ocean to achieve career goals.
Do it !
Justina Bakutyte
http://aplus.com/a/truth-about-stepping-out-of-comfort-zone?utm_campaign=n319&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
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