In the warmth of our comfort zones, life feels safe and easy. This safe circle keeps people from personal growth and doing the things they want but don’t have the courage to do.

What holds people back most of the time is their frame of mind to stay in their comfort zone to avoid feelings of anxiety or stress and pain.

Life is full of opportunities to step outside the comfort zone, but grabbing a hold of them can be difficult. Learning how to get out of your comfort zone leads you to the life you’re capable of living. Find what motivates you, and challenge yourself one step at a time. Getting out of your comfort zone leads to your professional and personal development and transformation.

Here are 6 ways to help you step out of your comfort zone and get closer to success.

1. Make Changes to Your Daily Routine

A routine built on good habits gives people stability and helps them get things done. But when someone become too attached to their daily routine, they begin to feel like they’re running in the same circle. Making changes to your daily routine is one way to get out of that rut. A simple change like altering your morning workout routine or working from a café instead of your home makes a big difference. It gives you a boost of energy and productivity.

2. Expand Your Professional Skillset

Getting too comfortable in a role you’ve outgrown can give you stuck when you need to move forward in your career. One way to leave your comfort zone is to learn new skills that give you a competitive advantage and make you more employable. Growing your skillset can foster creativity and refresh your self-confidence. Skills like public speaking, negotiation, and leadership can represent a new challenge for many people. Investing your time in expanding your skillset can build resilience, and personal satisfaction, and open up more opportunities than ever.

3. Try Something New

When you try the unknown, your mind is usually exaggerating the worst-case scenario, which rarely comes true. It’s because of your anxiety and fear that causes your mind to become more negative. As you practice trying new things over and over again, your fear will eventually go away and you’ll enjoy the new changes in you. Then, your adventurous self is set free and faces new adventures. It doesn’t matter how small the adventure is, just go out and try something new. Whatever it is, you’ll come out of trying new things happier and more passionate about life.   

4. Face Your Fear

You need to be brave to step out of your comfort zone. In fact, being brave is not about eliminating fear but moving forward despite it. People stay in their comfort zone to avoid the feeling of anxiety or stress and pain. The ability to take risks and face your fear by stepping outside your comfort zone is the primary way by which we grow. But we are often afraid to take that first step. Break the chains by confronting the fear that’s currently holding you back. If you want to do public speaking, start by taking every opportunity to speak to small groups of people and slowly get better from there.

This may help you:

6 Tips to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

5. Remain Positive

When it comes to leaving your comfort zone, having a positive mindset is crucial. There will be times when you experience a negative outcome. Something that shakes your confidence and makes you feel scared, such as travelling alone to a new country, making mistakes when presenting to your clients or being looked down upon by your manager. Recognize that it’s a natural part of the process in your life and accept that you will have negative outcomes. Don’t allow negativity to creep into your mind. Instead, look at it as feedback about how you can do something better the next time.

6. Keep Expanding Your Comfort Zone

Never stop expanding your comfort zone. Leaving your comfort zone ultimately helps you to deal with changes and make change in a much better way. Even if you arrive at your stated goal, it’s important to keep pushing those boundaries. Life transitions are all about changes. Each time you transition, you move to another level. There are plenty of comfort zone challenges you can find online when you’re out of ideas. The important thing is to keep pushing the boundaries of your life!

In Summary

It will seem really scary at first to get out of your comfort zone. As you slowly push past your comfort zone, you’ll feel more and more at ease about the new things you’ve never known before.