Folium: Push – Expanding Your Comfort Zone via Lifehacker
Folium: Push – Expanding Your Comfort Zone via Lifehacker
…
Connect
…
In every twist and turn this life presents, you need to always be ready to take life head on and push yourself to your absolute limit. Derek is a musician from California who travels all over the world playing shows. He has traveled to many countries experiencing some crazy situations in each country and has had to push himself many times out of his comfort zone. In his article he gives a bunch of examples of when he was in a variety of countries trying to confront a new experience head on even though he had never experienced anything like it before.
…
[The idea of the comfort zone goes back to a classic experiment in psychology. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson explained that a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety—a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal. This space is called “Optimal Anxiety,” and it’s just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we’re too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.] – Lifehacker
…
A “comfort zone” is a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress. Simply, your comfort zone is a behavioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in many ways such as regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress. If you never learn to push yourself beyond your limits then you’ll never know just how great the opportunities are that are just waiting around the corner.
…
Where would you be if you never went anywhere?
…
Derek is basically the defines his own definition of limit pushers. He says “Some people push themselves physically, to see how far they can go. I’ve been doing the same thing culturally, trying to expand my California-boy perspective.” He recalls the time when he had just moved to New York City. He was only twenty years old and was not used to living outside of his home state of California. It wasn’t until a couple years of living in New York City that he found that to be his “comfort zone.”
…
[The question is – what scares you now? What’s intimidating? What’s the great unknown?] – Lifehacker
…
Pushing your personal boundaries can help you hit your stride sooner, get more done, and find smarter ways to work. Once you start stepping out of your comfort zone, it gets easier over time. I like to use the example of my sister. My sister graduated high school and was nervous about starting college. She’s a homebody and doesn’t really like leaving the house unless she wants to. She was hesitant in moving far away from home to start at a school that she didn’t know anyone but me at. She accepted the challenge to come to a strange place in Idaho and start a new journey. Which the start of that new journey she found herself. She was able to feel the freedom that came with leaving the boundaries of her home and now lives independently in another state.
…
Motel 6 Did Their Homework…
…
After Derek has shared a bunch of personal experiences, his last piece of advice is that “You push push push, then one day find yourself on the very stage you used to dream about. And it feels so natural—almost relaxing. It’s your new comfort zone.” Dare to be different and push yourself so that you can reach a new level of awesomeness that you wouldn’t know existed if you didn’t move yourself out of the dreaded “comfort zone.”
…
…
Julie Martin
LEAF Editor & Contributor
…
