“Do one thing every day that scares you.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
Life inside our comfort zone is comfortable. Easy. Relaxing. Sort of like living in a warm and fuzzy cocoon. But as long as we stay there, we won’t grow. If we want to do the growing that gives us wings, then we need to leave that zone of comfort.
Let’s look at some simple strategies for leaving our comfort zone. What we want to do is give ourselves a personal challenge that exceeds our current capabilities. Or, in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, to scare ourselves, at least a little bit.
There are three easy ways to do this and they all hinge on our expectations of ourselves:
Changing the expected context (where or how)
Changing the expected time it takes (how fast)
Changing the expected level of quality (how good)
An example should help this make sense.
Marcos has decided to create his own growth environment. He has identified his email practices as a place where he can grow. He heard about “Zero Inbox,” an approach to email with the goal of keeping an empty inbox. Currently, looking at his inbox fills him with dread…12,483 messages is overwhelming. He typically remains in his comfort zone by ignoring that ever-growing number and quickly closing his email program after reading or sending that day’s email. (Ironically, our comfort zone is often where we also try to ignore our worries and anxieties!)
Changing the expected context (where/how)
Marcos can change his expected context in a variety of ways. Because his usual practice is opening his email app, dealing only with new items that need his immediate attention, and then closing the app as quickly as possible, he can change his expected practice by using a new email app, by widening his focus beyond only new items, by focusing on his email as a whole (treating it as a project), and so on. In this case, Marcos is going to open his email and take a good hard look at the current situation and treat his inbox and email practices as a project in an effort to stop feeling like Indiana Jones running from a giant boulder of email. Marcos rolls up his sleeves and begins the work of deleting and archiving old items from his inbox, using tips he found in a Zero Inbox group. Well outside his comfort zone of usual practice, Maros is in his growth zone.
Changing the expected time it takes (how fast)
Marcos does eventually get his email down to near zero, but unless he changes his strategy for dealing with incoming mail, it will quickly become unmanageable again. Getting to Inbox Zero took him a little over 5 hours. His daily email routine took only about 30 seconds, beyond the reading and sending of critical email, but that was because he was ignoring the rest of the email backlog. He has decided to deal with his entire inbox each day in 5 minutes or less, once critical emails are read or sent. This means he has to figure out ways to quickly process email that may not be critical right now, but that will eventually need a response. He also has email that doesn’t need a response, but that must be read (informative email). There are also the newsletters, offers, and marketing emails, some of which he appreciates and reads. And there’s always spam. Dealing with 30 or so pieces of email in 5 minutes will be tricky. Marcos does more research and learns that he can create rules in his email app that will help filter out the spam. He does this and immediately feels more in control of his inbox. He also makes some decisions about those marketing emails, deciding to unsubscribe to the ones he hasn’t been reading regularly. And so on. What Marcos is doing is innovating solutions to the problem of dealing with his inbox in less time. Innovating solutions is a sign of GROWTH! Marcos can continue to grow by decreasing the amount of time he allows himself to get to and maintain Inbox Zero.
Changing the expected level of quality (how good)
Marcos can also step from his comfort zone to his growth zone by finding ways to do a better or higher quality job of clearing his inbox in the same 5 minutes he allows himself. He accomplishes this by exploring the options of his email app. It turns out that he can flag inbox emails as tasks and set the deadline date and reminders about it. The inbox emails that required a response at some point in the future were problematic for him. He had to trust that he’d remember to deal with them (and we all know how well that works). But now he can turn inbox emails into tasks with automatic reminders. This increases the level of quality by helping to ensure that he doesn’t forget to take the action that he needs to take in the future. He can continue to push himself to grow by looking for additional ways to be better at dealing with items in his inbox.
Marcos is an Inbox Warrior at this point. But he also understands that the strategies of changing where/how, how fast, and how good are applicable to nearly any life situation:
Fixing dinner: let’s try something we’ve never eaten before, let’s see if we can be more efficient in how we prepare a meal, let’s use some gourmet ideas/ingredients
Getting the twins ready for school: let’s try setting out clothes the night before, let’s set an alarm for 10 minutes and aim for doing it in that time, let’s aim for neater hair and full breakfasts too
Cleaning up the garage: let’s turn this into a monthly task rather than a once-a-year slog, let’s aim for a 1-hour clean monthly after our initial deep clean, let’s include setting up a shelving unit for sports equipment
Even the drive to work: Let’s try taking the bus, let’s try cycling to the station instead of driving, let’s use the bus ride to catch up on some reading.
Doing things that scare you doesn’t have to be scary. In fact, stepping outside your comfort zone can be enjoyable. It’s where you grow. It’s where you get wings.
