7 Ways to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone (And Why Would You Need That)
You may often hear that you must step out of your comfort zone every once in a while if you want to grow either personally or professionally (or both). But how to understand where this zone starts and ends? And what to do exactly to step out of it? Let’s try to figure out.
Start Small
Whatever you are up to, it’s always wise to begin with small changes. This could be trying a new food, taking a small risk in a Luckia apuestas game, or even taking a different route to work. When these steps accumulate, you will build confidence to take on more significant challenges.
Take on a Challenge
In fact, this can be any challenge. You can try your hand at real money games at https://slotspeak.com/best-slots//. You can give up a habit you’ve never liked (or, on the contrary, take up a new habit). And, of course, there are challenges related to physical activity (e.g., a 5K run, a fitness class, or a personal strength goal). In a word, the idea is to do something you aren’t used to and to test your limits by doing so.
Learn a New Skill
Learning always means stepping out of your comfort zone. So it basically doesn’t matter what exactly you choose to learn (preferably, something that intrigues you). When choosing, you can approach it in several ways:
- learn a professional skill like coding that’ll be potentially rewarding
- learn something you enjoy like painting.
Depending on what you choose, you’ll find resources on Coursera or in local workshops. Get the skills you need with online courses, Find a qualification that can kickstart your career or expand your job prospects.
Travel Solo
Why solo, you may wonder? That’s because traveling together with someone is habitual, it’s typically within your comfort zone. Traveling alone, in turn, can be a transformative experience, especially if you go to a new place. It forces you to adapt to unfamiliar environments, meet new people, and handle unexpected situations.
Volunteer for a New Project at Work
Another excellent way of stepping out of the comfort zone that always works is volunteering. You just need to choose a project that’s outside your usual scope of work. Such experience changes everything.
Attend Networking Events
Back to those ideas that may help with your career, attending professional networking events is certainly one of them. First of all, it’ll force you to make conversation with strangers which can be challenging (and thus it’s stepping out of your comfort zone). Plus, it can lead to new opportunities and insights.
Why It’s So Important to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
Now, why would you bother doing all that? After all, stepping out of your comfort zone sounds more like a motivational slogan, doesn’t it? Well, it may sound like that but research has shown that when you push yourself to try new things, you push your brain to be creative.
The benefits it may bring are as follows:
- Psychological growth — When you face new challenges and learn new skills, this forges new neural pathways. That is, your cognitive function improves.
- Problem-solving skills — This one’s clear. Anything that’s new is a problem to our brain (in a way) and when exposed to it, it has to quickly learn to solve it.
- Creativity — That’s closely interrelated with problem-solving. Because the brain has to solve unusual problems, it comes up with non-standard solutions.
- Career advancement — When you experiment, take on new tasks, take risks, and stay open to new things, … well, that’s usually appreciated. Such people get promoted faster than those who prefer to stay within their comfort zone.
- Resilience — If you occasionally handle stress and anxiety, you do it better and better each new time. As a result, you feel better, too, because you know you are prepared for life’s unexpected challenges.
As you see, stepping out of your comfort zone has quite a lot of challenges. And you now know how to do it. Of course, you won’t take all the steps from our list, but even if you stick with two or three of them, that’ll make a huge difference!