A Dangerous Pitfall Called Comfort Zone
There is much talk of progress and success nowadays. Motivational programs are everywhere. In what sense of the word are we talking? For argument’s sake, let’s confine ourselves to the sense of advancement in career and money-making prospects. This then presupposes that everyone would always be striving to improve one’s earning capabilities and keep on rising in one’s working domain to reach higher and higher positions in the given hierarchy. This may be the first fallacy but let’s accept it as true for now.
How many of us are really prepared to go that extra mile to achieve this so-called goal, which ideally everyone is expected to be pursuing? As I see it, the goal is more in the desire form than in practice. Every goal has ladders and every ladder has steps. Every step necessitates a struggle or overcoming a shortcoming. One has to gauge correctly what is it that will make us go forward towards our goal. A sincere and impersonal guide and mentor are needed and they are extremely difficult to find or even recognize. Once the elements requiring correction en route are understood, a great effort is needed to retrain ourselves with new thought patterns and habits. Subconscious patterns, inculcated since the day we are born are deeply embedded in us and we have to literally fight against their hold on our everyday lives.
My personal perception is that most prefer to find a minimum sustenance program in life and stay within their comfort zones doing little to even accept the fact that it’s their own shortcomings that are keeping them back. Even when life gives us a knock or two and is kind enough to show us the way and the error of our ways, we find enough logic to rationalize and let the lesson slip into the comfortable slot of unpleasant occurring.
Take a struggling lawyer. He has passed out recently and raring to go. What can he do to advance surely and speedily? Perhaps become a junior with an already established lawyer and under his umbrella make a mark for himself? To arrive even at this juncture would need a certain modicum of language ability and study of legal texts and some luck. If he has it and he is taken in, the beginning is made. Would he be content with this? His job would be to take orders and work his heart out, quite often giving him tired muscles and a bruised ego. A junior is but a junior. Will he bear with it because of the learning process he is going through and grow or will his vanity refuse to take this position so low in the pecking order and quit and move into a situation closer to his comfort zone? And what could this be? An independent status, struggling to exist but at least his own boss!
Scurrying back into one’s comfort zone is a natural and primary tendency. This is at all levels; mental, emotional and physical. Laziness influenced by arguments from our ego wins over effort most often. Change means learning and changing habits and this requires a concerted and very conscious effort. Is this sustainable in real life? Why disturb the status quo?
Take for instance the status of most marriages. Is it a made-for-each-other existence or a compromise where we learn to coexist for the comforts of a home? There are wives being battered but they continue to stay put. There are husbands being nagged to death but they continue to stay put. There are millions of people stuck in jobs and situations they hate but doing very little to take the next step that will take them to better their existence. How does one explain this? Simple: It is so much simpler to live and continue within one’s existing known comfort zones.
Let’s look around us. How many people are bothered to improve their communication ability yet never failing to complain that nobody understan
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First thing we should remember and differentiate is the “type of goal” we are dealing with. Not all goals need this treatment. Dr Robert ( success intelligence fame) provides a good framework to think about “type” of goals and the resultant action we should take. Comfort zones do play a favourable part in certain goals: provide stability and yes comfort In some other goals probably it is wise to get out of the zone. The advice here is too generic.
How does one become a butterfly?” She asked.
“You have to want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar”.
Too often, we are content to be caterpillars all our lifes. Changing is so difficult and time consuming. So much better to hang out on the couch, eating chips watching TV and live out our deepest fantasies vicariously. Now I am not against this picture-It’s a great way to relax after a stressful day. But it becomes difficult when somehow one’s dreams are reduced to this pin point of expectation-when can I get home so I don’t miss the next episode of my adrenalin loaded fantasy episode?
And I am not talking about just career aspirations and ambitions. I am talking about how each and every one of us is blessed with the potential to contribute meaningfully.
My main frustration is how easy I find it to slip back into my comfort zone. But this time, I really want to fly and so am determined to break through.
I’ve thought up a couple of schemes-my writing, the community work I’d like to take on, quality time with my parents etc. I plan to have one priority a month to initiate some action around it.
So begins my baby steps towards butterflydom.
Best of luck Aathi
Sometimes, people in private companies tend to act as if they are working for the government. So, they expect bright juniors who are more efficient than them to comply with the senior’s foolish and ineffficient notions. The seniors throw their weight around – when all along they were carrying the clients on their shoulders by using their “Charm” and not “Good Work”.
Doing what you like and liking what you do are often defined as success.Ironically both of them in a way represent “comfort zone.”
The article covers this topic in a superficial manner.
Hi, I consider this absolutely accurate in my life. From average student to average employee to average entrepreneur, taking time out in between to be average husband and father, not to mention son and sundry other roles, I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime ‘attempting’ to break through.
It is laborious and at times completely disheartening. I completely relate to the comfort zone. This is probably better labeled compromise zone, or truce zone, or survival zone. Rather live in a hovel than risk dying for a Mahal!
I have found, as have others, that it takes the lash of a deadly breakdown to breakthrough the comfort zone. In my case it was alcoholism. In attempting a desparate recovery, I found the tools to deal with the worst of my ‘comfortors’, so to say.
It’s been worthwhile. Hope this helps!
Gopal