How many times have you heard yourself or others say ‘I need to step outside of my comfort zone’ or ‘I need to push past my comfort zone.’ It is something which we know we should be doing for ourselves once in a while but do we actually know why? What exactly is the big attraction of pushing ourselves beyond what is nice, familiar and comfortable? Surely being outside of your comfort zone brings you one thing…discomfort! All these books about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, doing one thing that scares you each day, indeed there are whole shelves in the Self Help aisles devoted to welcoming discomfort. But why on earth would you willingly seek and welcome discomfort?
Just over a year ago I went body boarding for the first time with my sister and her friend at our local beach. Thoroughly enjoying myself I became complacent, I let my guard down and got caught in a rip current. I was rapidly being brought out to sea. At the time I wasn’t a great swimmer, and that’s putting it mildly. I was in big trouble and desperately hanging onto the board. I won’t say my life flashed before my eyes but the panic that rose within me was real and terrifying. Luckily my amazing sister and her friend swam to my rescue and managed to swim me and the board ashore after an exhausting battle with that rip. Back on dry land I swore blind I would never enter the sea again. I was embarrassed, frustrated at my complacency and decidedly shook up. A surfer friend insisted I needed to get back in the water as soon as possible before the fear set in but I was having none of it. For me that fear was staying well and truly put thank you very much.
Fast forward to later that year when I read I Found My Tribe by Ruth Fitzmaurice. That beautiful woman ignited something in me that I can only call bloody minded determination. I was not going to be beaten by the sea or rather I was not going to be beaten by my fear of it. I was going to step outside of my comfort zone because I knew if I stayed there I was going to miss out on so much living. I resolved to get back in the sea and chose a cold miserable New Years Day to do it with a bunch of fabulous women to support me. It was liberating, empowering and I forgave the sea for crippling me with fear and more importantly I forgave myself for giving into that fear.
When you try to visualise what your comfort zone looks like it might be a nice smooth circle around you that contains your happy little world and protects you from experiences that you do not wish to partake in. You know what to expect; it’s cosy, familiar and comfortable. You are coping and managing your life but are you really living the best life you can? Are you giving yourself the best chance to grow and thrive, to learn, to be challenged, to discover more about yourself and the wider world? If you do make the decision to step outside of your comfort zone, even a little, or indeed push the boundaries beyond your comfort zone, amazing things will happen. Those smooth walls become a little less perfect, a little less impermeable and your zone swells and grows because now it is full of new people you have met along your journey, new experiences that stemmed from that first step and indeed new ways of thinking about yourself, the world and your place in it. The world has changed because you have changed. Your zone is now dynamic, organic, open and welcoming and you are a better person for it. Others will look to you and make changes to their comfort zone because of you. But here’s the really important bit, it is your zone and therefore only you say what happens with it. You dictate the rate at which you wish to expand it and with what experiences. The experience can be as simple as smiling at a stranger or learning a new skill or overcoming a phobia.
I started swimming lessons a few months back. I figured if I was going to do this sea swimming thing seriously then I’d really want to be able to swim properly. I’m now on lesson 20 and just this week my instructor Dee said I didn’t need her anymore, she had taught me everything I needed and I was now a swimmer. But believe me it wasn’t an easy skill for me to learn and by lesson 10 I was ready to give up and happy to remain a non-swimmer. I wanted to stay in my comfort zone where things were easy, where nobody pushed me or challenged me and where I knew what to expect. Learning how to swim was just too hard, too frustratingly bloody hard and though every week Dee my instructor would remind me of how far I’d come and to not be so hard on myself I wanted to give up, and on the bad days when it just wouldn’t come together for me I secretly felt like stomping out of there like an angry child. Every week, reminiscent of my days of driving lessons I’d secretly hope Dee would text me to cancel our session. But no every week there it was, short and not so sweet ‘Sat@11.45?’ and every week like a good little student I’d cheerfully reply ‘Perfect!’ It’s certainly taking longer than I ever anticipated but the pride that I feel for not giving up, for pushing myself each week to do this now that is a special feeling. The plan for next summer is to give Scuba diving a go; yes I know I don’t do things by halves!
These days my kids think I’m kind of awesome because they see their mammy doing things for fun, no other reason just plain old liberating fun. They’re my biggest fans when they giggle and cheer with excitement at the image of mammy running with wild abandon into the sea on a cold rainy March morning. My eldest girl draws pictures of me as a mermaid and has her own little ‘Save Our Seas’ campaign going on by refusing plastic straws when we’re in cafés. I’m hoping that by showing my kids that life is precious that it will help them in later years to find coping mechanisms for the times when life is anything but fun. I want to show my kids that their bodies are wonderful, strong and amazing and that it’s not about size or shape. I want them to see that gender is not a barrier to success, to fulfilment, to achieving your dreams. Most of all I want them to see that life is for living, not in the past or the future but very much in the now. Each of us has limitless potential for greatness, if we just step outside our comfort zones. Even if it’s just dipping our toes in the cold Atlantic Ocean; just watch, amazing things will happen.