If you want to truly live a fulfilling life you MUST step out of your comfort zone. And not just once. You must learn to step out of your comfort zone every day. All the time. Constantly.
Your comfort zone consists of everything that you currently have in your life right now. Maybe at one point those things were outside of your comfort zone, but now that you have them and they are part of your daily routine they are full-on comfort zone status.
Everything you have in your life right now is in your comfort zone. So if you want something different from where you are right now, you must venture outside of your comfort zone.
If you want a new job, more freedom to travel and experience new places, to learn a new language or skill, any of the things that your heart and soul are calling you towards… you must learn how to step outside of your comfort zone.
By mastering the ability to step out of your comfort zone, you will learn how to work with your fear. You will learn how to do things that scare you. You will learn how to stop letting your fears overrun your life. You will essentially become unstoppable.
Sounds pretty good right? But how do we actually do that?
We need to change our relationship to fear
In order to start stepping out of your comfort zone, you don’t have to conquer fear. You don’t have to eliminate your fear. You don’t have to punch fear in the face or any of that aggressive nonsense. You don’t have to become completely “fearless” (because that’s not a thing).
You just have to learn how to change your relationship to fear.
Right now, most of us think that fear is a red light.
I want to go solo hiking, but I’m scared. Therefore I can’t do it.
I want to quit my job and pursue the things I actually love doing, but I’m scared of what will happen. Therefore I have to stay put, exactly where I am.
Because I feel the fear…I must stop.
And that concept of fear as a red light, makes our fear debilitating. It allows fear to run our lives and keep us paralyzed.
Instead, I like to think of fear as a green light.
Fear is a sign that there is something really good on the other side. I’ve learned how to look at fear as a positive indicator that I’m headed in the right direction. Essentially, I’ve learned how to follow my fear.
But this change in my relationship to fear did not happen overnight. I made the change by starting small. I started by doing really small things that scared me to show myself that I am capable of doing hard, scary things.
How solo hiking changed my relationship with fear
I started with solo hiking, which honestly happened by accident. I wanted to hike in Shenandoah National Park, but couldn’t find anyone who could take a vacation at the same time as me. I decided that I wasn’t going to let a lack of companionship stop me, and I was going to hike it solo.
But truthfully, I was terrified. I was scared of getting lost. I was scared people would judge me for being a loner. And mostly, I was scared of running into a black bear and getting mauled to death.
So I started small, with a well-populated, 3 mile trail. I waited at the trailhead, pretending to look at the map, until a nice looking family came by. Then I proceeded to lurk behind them a bit- so I didn’t feel so alone. Gradually, as I hiked, I started to feel braver and I let more and more distance fall between me and the family until I couldn’t even see them any more. I was doing it! I was hiking solo!
The next day I was able to do an even longer hike without stalking innocent families. By the end of the trip I had hiked multiple peaks of Shenandoah National Park completely solo and I felt so confident. I now knew how to feel the fear, and do it anyways. I could feel afraid and not let the fear paralyze me. I could feel the fear in my body and say “Ok. This is fear. This means I’m headed in the right direction. This is actually a good thing. Fear is a green light.”
Next, I challenged myself to go solo camping. Again, I was terrified. I scrolled pinterest and google, reading countless articles about how to go solo camping as a woman.
I picked an incredibly safe and popular state park in Pennsylvania. I went car camping, instead of trekking out to a remote site, so that I wasn’t too far from other humans. As I was falling asleep that first night, it started to hit me that I was alone in the woods and I felt so nervous. What if some serial killer came by and snatched me up? What if some wild animals decided they were hungry?
Part of me wanted to pack up my tent and drive off in my car to the safety of my apartment.
But instead of acting out of panic, I decided to lean into the fear. I felt the anxiety. I just allowed myself to feel it in my body. I breathed into it. Allowing it to be there, but not allowing it to stop me and eventually I calmed down and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up the next morning to the most beautiful sunrise. Surrounded by nature. Feeling so accomplished and sure of myself that I could do hard things.
And doing this with small things like solo hiking and solo camping, allowed me to build up the muscle of stepping out of my comfort zone in bigger ways. Learning how to change my relationship to fear allowed me to do big, “scary”, things like quit my stable career in medicine, solo travel around the world and start my own online business as a career coach. Because after all, how we do one thing is how we do everything.
Do one small thing every day to get out of your comfort zone
Learning how to change your relationship to fear and step out of your comfort zone is a skill that anyone can develop. You start by doing small things every single day to step out of your comfort zone.
Show yourself in small and concrete ways that your fear and anxiety don’t have to be a red light, stopping you from taking action. Your fear and anxiety don’t have to be the boss of you. Your fear and anxiety can be a green light, that points you in the direction of where you want to go next.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Go out to eat by yourself
- Go to a movie by yourself
- Go on a solo day hike in a safe place like a state or national park
- Do a FB/IG live
- Start learning a foreign language and speak it to native speakers. Man that shit is SCARY!
- Have a difficult, boundary setting conversation with someone in your life
- Sign up for a physical challenge that scares you: a 5K, 10k, half marathon,
- Start a membership at CrossFit or Orange Theory.
Pick one small thing that scares you and commit to doing it anyways.
How to deal with fear as it comes up
When you are about to do that thing, you will likely feel afraid. That’s ok. That’s totally normal.
When you feel the fear. Pause for a moment and check in with your body.
Feel the fear in your physical body and ask yourself some questions.
Where do you feel this sensation of fear? What does it feel like- can you describe it? Put all your attention out of your head and into the physical sensation in your body. Take a deep breath and BREATHE into it. Send your breath into the physical place where you feel the fear.
Remind yourself that fear is excitement without the breath. Remind yourself that fear is a green light. Fear means you are on the right track.
Continue breathing into this place of anxiety and tension until it starts to dissolve.
Feel the fear and then do the small scary thing anyways.
Once you’ve done the scary thing, pause again and congratulate yourself.
Celebrate yourself. Acknowledge that you are brave.
You are strong. You can do hard thing!
Rinse and repeat. Remember learning how to change your relationship to fear is something that requires practice. It requires repeated action on a daily basis.
So from now on, whenever you feel afraid, I want you to think of your fear as a green light. As a sign that there must be something really juicy waiting for you on the other side.
Don’t run away from your fear or allow it to paralyze you, because by living that way you miss out on so many wonderful experiences. You miss out on feeling truly alive.
Follow the process I outlined above to feel your fear, and do it anyways, and over time, watch as your whole life transforms!
