Personal growth happens outside of your comfort zone.

So in order to continue to pursue your dreams, you must make the decision to be comfortable with discomfort. As soon as you decide that you are ok with discomfort, you will be able to step outside of your comfort zone much easier.

This doesn’t mean you won’t feel discomfort. It just means that you won’t react negatively to it every time. You’ll be prepared for it and better able to handle it.

I can speak from experience. This isn’t an easy thing to do but it’s extremely necessary. Pursuing your calling or life’s purpose is a long term endeavor. The journey to a successful life is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to be in it for the long haul. This means that you should be prepared to set goals, reach those goals and push past your comfort zone lots of times over the course of your life.

The best way to get comfortable being uncomfortable is to do it in stages. While there are some people who can jump into the freezing cold pool and adjust to the temperature in one fell swoop, others prefer to dip their feet in slowly. I’m going to give you the slow approach but if you’re the type to jump right in, I encourage you to do that as well.

You ultimately have to do what’s best for you. 

1. Create a vision board of the goal you’d like to accomplish. 

You can create an entire board or just post a picture of the goal you’d like to accomplish in a visible location. You want to be able to see it regularly. Putting up a picture that you see often will help make the goal more real in your mind. Often goals can seem like far off things that we aspire to accomplish someday. The vision board or picture makes it less far off. 

2. Do something you’ve never done before. 

Find something you’ve never tried and give it a go. You can start small and try a type of food you’ve never eaten or you can try a dish you’ve never tried. As you become more comfortable with the smaller things, look for other things you can try then try them. 

3. Play the “what if” game. 

Do this with someone close to you who doesn’t mind asking the hard questions. Ask each other a series of “what if” questions as it relates to your life and be prepared to honestly answer them. If necessary, record the questions and your answers. It’s helpful to keep a record of these questions for review later. You should speak the answers rather than write them. We tend to edit the words that we write much more than we edit the words we say. 

We all create comfort zones as a form of personal safety. It allows us to be comfortable in our skin and go about our daily lives with relative ease. It takes work to step outside of your comfort zone but it must happen if you want to pursue your dreams.

Your comfort zone is a mental creation which means that in order to step outside of it, you must change your thoughts. It’s not easy to change the way you think. I just shared some things that will help you begin that process.

Opening your mind to other possibilities makes it easier to accept that you can reach goals that may seem far off and impractical. It makes it possible to believe that you have the ability to change your life.

Remember, personal growth happens outside of your comfort zone.