Getting out of the comfort zone is important for personal growth and crucial for any attempt of achieving greatness. After my marriage with Anna she was convinced I am not living to my potential. So she made it a personal goal to take me out of my comfort zone. This is not an easy task, especially since I have an overfocus ADHD, which basically means I have very hard time adapting to changes. With time I adapted some of Anna’s enthusiasm as a part of what I do. Here I will try to show why it is important to get out of our comfort zone, and how to do this with minimal discomfort. This article is generated by what I read here, here, here, here, and here.
Evolutional roots
We are to a large extent biological machines, so many things that are important for us have a deep survival background. Any change may be potentially disastrous for an animal: any injury, changes in food supply, competition or weather changes could get us killed. So we developed a strong avoidance of changes. However, once something important did change we needed to increase our performance simply to survive. As a result, any change or challenge generates a flood of performance increasing hormones in our blood. And this is a good thing.
The goldilocks rule
The optimal stress amount is very personal. Typically the extroverts need more arousal than introverts. Too little stress and we get bored and inattentive. Too much stress and we get psychological trauma or a burnout. Just enough stress and we get into the blissful “flow” state where we maximize our performance. As we get used to the higher level of challenge and adapt new skills and strategies, the level of challenge needs to be raised again. Alternatively, we may want to face a challenge in a different area of life, where our skills are less dominant.
Personal gratification
Stress is something that requires us to burn more energy, generating dopamines. While we instinctively fear to get out of the comfort zone, it is actually good for us. People who are pushed hard by their bosses also are significantly more likely to:
- Consider themselves to be high performers
- Feel that the work that they do makes a difference
- Recommend the company to other people as a great place to work
The things we learn out of our comfort zone forster creativity and allow us to perform better than others.
Rivalry of giants
A simple key to continuous personal growth is a constant increase in challenges as we become better.
Competition or a friendly rivalry is one of the easiest ways to get constantly out of the comfort zone. As the rivals learn, they generate ever stronger challenges for each other. If someone invents a clever hack to get ahead of the competition, the rivals learn it and improve it to the next level. The periods of the greatest leaders, artists, and scientists are usually also the periods of the greatest rivalry between them.
The period of the renaissance is especially interesting in this perspective since it was filled with wars and rivalries in Italy. Typically we think that prolonged piece is critical for great growth, but the renaissance was anything except peaceful. If you want to read some interesting historical examples or famous rivalries try also reviewing the 19-century rivalries of the people who built America.
So maybe instead of trying to see our rivals as threats, we can also view them as an opportunity for our personal growth.
What is a good life?
It is not clear what is a good life. It is interesting how stoicism and epicureanism treated the subject. Stoics strived for civil greatness and self-discipline, they focused on politics and conflicts. Epicureans tried to avoid politics and conflicts, hoping to find greater happiness in simple life pleasures. Arguably stoics achieved more and lived more interesting lives, but they played a high personal price for their achievements.
Bad stress
It is very hard to maintain the level of challenge just right to be in the goldilocks zone. If we use too much of our energy we will eventually get tired and burn out. Additionally, if we face an insurmountable challenge we may get traumatized and lose faith. Thus, it is crucial to increase the level of challenge slowly and take breaks between challenges.
Here our instincts often fight against common sense. As we change our daily routine and experience higher arousal, we are more willing to face additional changes. Just like a betting person, quickly rising stakes may result in short-term excitement and long-term ruin.
Planning
To fight our self-destructive urges, it is best to plan the time when we get out of the comfort zone and the level of the arousal we allow ourselves. While it is nice to take small challenges every day, we naturally allow ourselves ~9 months to handle huge challenges. Most of the changes we make in our life pale in comparison with childbirth and require a couple of weeks to adapt. Changing diet, taking a new job, or learning a new skill is probably within this category.
Many people wish to acquire learning skills during the period of the greatest job and learning challenges. While this behavior is quite natural it may be counterproductive. During the vacations and breaks, we tend to rest and have a hard time generating motivation to acquire new skills. The empirical progress of our students shows it is probably best to take a small break during the times of crisis and focus on progress during the vacations, even though it feels wrong.
Summary
Here are my main points in this article:
- Getting out of the comfort zone is important for personal growth.
- The challenge needs to be high yet manageable.
- Healthy competition is a good way to generate a constantly rising challenge.
- It is important to recuperate. Too much of a challenge is bad.
- You can plan the level of challenge. Self-discipline is required for good planning.
