Five Steps to Moving Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Moving outside your comfort zone doesn’t have to involve giant leaps of faith. They can be, and should be, tiny little steps that keep building your confidence until one day when you are ready, and have a solid foundation, to make a bigger leap.

This week I am preparing to move outside of my comfort zone again and it got me to thinking abut how I actually do this, especially since I have been doing it much more frequently lately.

As part of my business I want to share my knowledge with others. One way to do this is to present workshops and seminars. Over the years, taking small steps, I have moved outside my comfort zone of speaking in front of people by starting with teaching small employee in-services (15-minute lessons), with just a handful of co-workers and slowing building up to presenting at national conventions in front of hundreds. Starting small and taking baby steps by teaching small groups of people I knew helped me to one day share my knowledge and present to hundreds of people I’ve never met.

But, I can’t sit around and wait for people to invite me to teach and to speak. And, this is where moving outside of my comfort zone comes in – planning my own events.

Even saying it causes my stomach to knot up.

So I decided to look at how I’ve moved outside my comfort zone in the past, share this information with you in the hopes that you could apply them in your own life and use an example from my own life this week to demonstrate the steps.

1. Desire – have a deep need or desire to grow and change.

It all starts right here. It may be a sense of discontent, a desire to get more out of life or an inner calling to follow a new path. However it starts, the desire to grow and change begins within you and moving outside your comfort zone is how you are going to get there.

I have defined my life’s mission as “to learn, to grow and to share”. I have defined that teaching workshops is part of my mission. To do this I need to get comfortable planning events.

2. Tangible – Have a real world, concrete reason for doing so.

It helps to have a real, tangible task, reason or problem to solve to help move you outside of your comfort zone. It helps to have a reason ‘why’.

With two other people we are planning a multi-day workshop/event for this Fall and includes a timeline and multiple deadlines.

3. Accountability – Tell someone else, or involve someone else.

When you involve someone else your accountability not moves beyond just yourself. Once someone else knows what you are planning to do it puts a little pressure on you to follow through. In addition, for a lot of people, it is easy to meet our obligations to others than ourselves.

I have committed to meeting one of my fellow event planners in Austin this week to visit hotels and potential meeting places. (If she wasn’t going, I might have canceled my trip.)

4. Preparation – plan ahead, decide what you need to make it easier, get organized.

What do you need to feel a little more at ease? Having friends around? Your favorite music? A book? Do you need to be alone to the task you’ve accomplish the laid out in front of you? If you are running a 5k, you need to prepare and train. If you are giving a speech, you need to get comfortable with your subject and practice.

I paid the extra $10 for early check-in/boarding for Southwest airlines. (helps relieve my anxiety about finding a good seat and flying.) I have an itinerary for the three days, with time built into the schedule for some time alone. I am taking my GPS so I don’t get lost in a strange city. I am meeting someone I know. I have my flight, car and hotel reserved. I have a list of questions and an outline of what we are looking for.

5. Reward – it addition to the overall feeling of accomplishment, it is good idea to give yourself a small reward for stepping outside of your comfort zone and to celebrate.

Once you moved outside your comfort zone, and completed what you set out to do, regardless of whether you few the task or event as a success or failure, you need to celebrate and give yourself a small reward. Maybe it is lunch out with friends, or a quiet afternoon alone to do nothing, or getting a massage. Whatever reward you give yourself, make sure it is for you, and celebrates your accomplishment, no matter how big or small.

When I get home on Friday, I am going to take a bath, rent a movie, get take out pasta from my favorite Italian restaurant, stay up late and read a book. This is the perfect reward / celebration for me.

I’ll let you know how it all goes when I return.