For most people, the comfort zone is where they exactly want to be. After all, there are no more challenges when you’re comfortable.
Life becomes routine and predictable. No one asks too much of you, and you certainly aren’t asking much of yourself.
It sounds easygoing and straightforward.
The problem with comfort zones is, that’s where you stagnate.
Without challenge, you never become more than you are, and you certainly never realise your full potential.
We all suffer from the same common unconscious thoughts that tend to keep us in our comfort zone.
Yes, we indeed are our own worst enemy.
You might already realise that when you’re failing it’s because of a limitation somewhere, that’s stalled you out.
But did you know that most limitations are ones that you’ve put on yourself, most of them without you even realising it?
Below is a list of those subconscious things we say to ourselves that limit our success, even when we think we’re positive and proactive.
“Someone doesn’t like me.”
It seems like it doesn’t matter how many compliments a person gets, if there’s one criticism, you’re probably going to dwell on it.
That one negative comment might even be holding you back from ever trying again.
“I do everything wrong.”
This one is a fallacy right out of the gate.
No one can do everything wrong.
The fact that you’re here and breathing says you’re doing something right.
What this is an example of is that ‘all or nothing’ thinking that looks at take one mistake or error and using that to determine that you’re not able to succeed no matter how hard to you try.
“Anyone could have done that.”
By downplaying your role, you deny your abilities. There’s a time for modesty certainly, but when you take this too far, you start thinking you can’t do things well on your own, thereby limiting yourself.
“I failed last time.”
In this case, you’re certain that one failure is automatically going to lead to another.
This kind of overgeneralization limits you by making you think that previous experience always has to affect current performance, regardless of what you’re doing differently.
“I can’t do it.”
By assuming you can’t before you even try, you’ve already guaranteed your failure.
With this kind of brain blockage, you’re probably not going to work very hard if you do press on, because subconsciously, you’ve already determined that it’s not worth the effort.
“This feels ‘off.'”
By relying on our emotions to act as a barometer of our success, you’re not likely to get very far.
New things aren’t going to feel right the first time you do them.
Most times you’re in new territory it’s pretty normal to feel uncomfortable or like things aren’t working out right.
In understanding the messages that you send to yourself, you likewise start understanding why you have certain limitations.
By paying attention to self-talk, you’re better able to push past this point into the possibility of success.
It’s all a matter of listening to what you have to say.
If that already isn’t reason enough, then let’s look at some serious reasons to push past your limitations and escape the comfort zone.
There’s a whole world out there waiting for you.
When you’re in your comfort zone, you’re not exploring or discovering what life has to offer.
You never discover what you’re capable of until you try.
Don’t you want to know just how far you can go, and what you’re able to become?
You get to learn something you never knew before.
By challenging yourself, that’s where you pick up new skill sets and abilities.
These will lead you to all kinds of fascinating new places.
You’ll become healthier.
By pushing yourself into motion, you’ll find that you start doing more, which leads to exercising more.
People in the comfort zone spend far too much time as couch potatoes.
Is that really where you want to be?
You start to build new habits.
A little push into something new every single day quickly becomes habitual.
This effort means you’re bettering yourself daily.
You find out things you never knew about yourself.
When you push yourself to the limit, you find out your actual strengths.
That leads to a voyage of self-discovery that is extremely rewarding.
You’ll find that once you start, you can’t wait to keep going.
The hardest part of any new endeavour is the beginning.
Once you’re in motion, you tend to stay in motion.
Imagine if you started accomplishing new things regularly. What amazing things could you achieve?
You’ll find out where those limits genuinely are.
And then break through them all over again. Pushing to your limits helps you to know what your new goals should be, and then teaches you how to get past them.
Pushing yourself to the limit is the start of an exciting new journey that will take you places the comfort zone never could and shows you the person you never thought you could be.
Isn’t it time to see what the world has to offer and what you have to offer it?
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