I listened to a podcast clip recently that talked about living your most fulfilling life within your comfort zone. It piqued my interest because most of the information out there says the opposite – you have to reach outside your comfort zone and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
This made me pause to consider what our comfort zones really are as opposed to what the term has come to mean for us.
When I first became familiar with the term it was in the context of the skills that come naturally to you, your interests, talents and passions. Nothing about the term gave me the impression that growth did not exist in the comfort zone. Therefore for me it was more about experiencing growth in the areas that interested me, developing the talents I had been gifted with, and improving the skills I had come to acquire. That was my context.
However, over time, I came to hear the term being used as an excuse for laziness, a lack of self-development, and selfishness. In this context you have an established routine in life and that’s it – anything beyond that familiarity would immediately be met with pushback.
So, for the first time I decided to look up a few definitions of the term “comfort zone” to see if that would help clarify the opposing ideas of self-fulfillment and actualization only being possible within one’s comfort zone vs it only being possible outside of one’s comfort zone.
Oxford Languages: a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress.
Betterup.com: “The comfort zone is a psychological state in which a person feels at ease because they’re not being tested. Inside the comfort zone, people don’t typically engage in new experiences or take on any challenges. They only participate in activities that are familiar, making them feel “in control” of their environment.”
Cambridge Dictionary: a situation in which you feel comfortable and in which your ability and determination are not being tested
PositivePsychology.com: “The phrase ‘comfort zone’ was coined by management thinker Judith Bardwick in her 1991 work Danger in the Comfort Zone:
“The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.”
Within the comfort zone, there isn’t much incentive for people to reach new heights of performance. It’s here that people go about routines devoid of risk, causing their progress to plateau.”
As interesting as these definitions and explanations are, the thing that caught my eye most lay in the diagram below from PositivePsychology.com
At the base of the ‘Learning Zone’ it says “extend the comfort zone”. That really popped for me because it highlights something that I believe we all know and believe even if we don’t practice it – human beings stagnate without growth. Growth is a characteristic of living things – that’s one of my earliest memories from Science class.
The idea of a stagnant comfort zone just does not make sense. Our comfort zones extend as we grow. Yes, we go through stages of overwhelm that make us want to shut down and so we gravitate towards zero-stress, and sometimes we need that. But that’s not a lifestyle, it’s situational. We all need to grow and change to feel good about ourselves, to enjoy our relationships, to make progress in our chosen areas, to live a fulfilling life.
What are your thoughts on the comfort zone?
