Stepping out of your comfort zone can often feel uncomfortable, but did you know challenging yourself in this way can give you a boost in the mental health department?

The comfort zone is known as a self-created space, where our activities and behaviours fit a routine and pattern that minimize stress and risk.  

But the ability to cope with the stress and discomfort of life’s challenges actually protects against several mental health symptoms, including depression and anxiety.

Healthy stress can actually act as a catalyst for growth and provide a powerful motivation to act.

Let’s explore how to step out of your comfort zone.

How to Step out of Your Comfort Zone

Things Which May Currently Be Outside of Your Comfort Zone:

• Meeting new people.
• Speaking up in class.
• Seizing new opportunities.
• Traveling to new places.
• Contributing at business meetings.
• Learning new skills.
• Speaking in public.
• Starting a new business venture.

Why is it Important to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone?

It can allow you to gain self-confidence.

As you push out of you comfort zone and test yourself, you’ll see how mastering certain skills can increase your confidence. Self-confidence is associated with positive thoughts, higher aspirations, less stress, and less anxiety.

With each action taken outside of your comfort zone, that zone expands. Once you master a new skill or action, it eventually becomes part of your new comfort zone.

And when you become more skilled and more knowledgeable, you can attract greater success and essentially have more control over your own destiny.

It can often seem overwhelming to step out into the unknown. Instead of thinking big picture about what you want or need to accomplish, start by making small changes first.

Tips for Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

• Try a new hobby or activity that you’ve never done before.
• Be open to new experiences.
• Try eating a new food you’ve never tried.
• Try cooking a new dish or preparing a meal you’ve never made.
• Try listening to a different type of music.
• Start a new creative project.
• Add some newness to your life.
• Change your daily commuting route.

Try small changes that take you out of your familiar and everyday routine, yet are not too logistically or emotionally challenging to deter you from future attempts. Small changes can accumulate and each will build upon the last.

Final Thoughts

I have personally been fairly change resistant thus far in my life. But I’ve also noticed that stepping out of my own comfort zone almost always ends in a positive experience.

A simple example I can relate to would be the desire to stay home during our downtime, where it’s safe, instead of venturing out into the world. But most of the time when venturing out, guess what happens, we have fun, experience something interesting, or encounter something that can help us grow spiritually or mentally.

I like the idea of starting with small changes, and stepping out of my own comfort zone until it becomes a routine and enjoyable experience for me to try new things. Let me know your experiences around stepping out one’s comfort zone, and please tell me your own tips.

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How to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone