How to Expand Your Comfort Zone

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We all have a comfort zone. A comfort zone represents the things we do every day that do not cause stress.

When you stay within your comfort zone, what that really means is that you are engaging in activities, on a daily basis, that you are comfortable doing. And because you are comfortable doing them, you do not feel any stress.

When you do things outside your comfort zone, things that are new and different, like learning a new skill, those new things create short-term stress. Because they are new things, your brain is taxed and pushed a little to perform those new things. This taxing of the brain creates stress and that stress will continue until you begin to get better at the new thing you are doing. Once you get good at that new thing, the stress subsides.

The benefit of practicing something new, is that it forces you to expand your comfort zone. The cost is the short-term stress you must endure.

The irony about the comfort zone is that, if you don’t engage in new things, because you don’t want to feel short-term stress, your comfort zone will never expand. As a result, most avoid engaging in new things in order to avoid feeling stress. And most, therefore, stay within their comfort zone.

The key to expanding your comfort zone is to make a habit of getting comfortable being uncomfortable, or getting comfortable with short-term stress. This happens to be one of the common denominators of self-made millionaires. They have conditioned themselves to endure short-term stress. Or put another way, self-made millionaires have created the daily habit of forcing themselves to expand their comfort zone.

As a result, self-made millionaires are in constant growth mode. And growth is a prerequisite for success. Success requires that your grow into the person you need to be in order for success to visit you.

If you don’t push yourself, if you don’t stress yourself every now and then, your comfort zone will never expand and if your comfort zone does not expand you won’t grow. And if you do not grow, success is impossible.

 

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Thomas C. Corley About Thomas C. Corley

Tom Corley is a bestselling author, speaker, and media contributor for Business Insider, CNBC and a few other national media outlets.

His Rich Habits research has been read, viewed or heard by over 50 million people in 25 countries around the world.

Besides being an author, Tom is also a CPA, CFP, holds a master’s degree in taxation and is President of Cerefice and Company, a CPA firm in New Jersey.
 
Phone Number: 732-382-3800 Ext. 103.
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