We like comfort. Modern American Society (as far as Madison Ave. would have it) tells you that comfort is king. It seems there is always a product or service that will make a relatively easy life even easier. And if you are ever feeling a bit challenged by life, you're doing it wrong (so they say).

Well, what's the problem with being comfortable? Nothing, really. Except one tiny, little thing. If you are always comfortable, you're not growing. By it's very nature, growth comes about when you are challenged to respond to less than ideal situations. This is especially true of life skills. So if you want to develop your life skills, you have to struggle with challenge and get out of your "comfort zone".

Your comfort zone is an artificial construct created by your ego. One of your ego's main jobs is to keep you safe from physical harm. Keeping you in your comfort zone is a good way to do this - it keeps most of us from hang gliding, bungee jumping, and jumping out of perfectly good planes with nothing but a parachute on our backs.   The ego causes problems, though, because it also prevents us from doing things that aren't physically dangerous - it tries to keep us emotionally and mentally comfortable too.

Think about a baby learning to walk. It crawls and then stands and then... falls. Cries about it, and then tries again. If not we'd all be crawling along and the kneepad industry would be doing great. So just like when you were a baby, you have to fall down to grow.  If you want to get better at meeting new people for example, you have to go out and get a little nervous, make some mistakes, and try again.

It’s important to realize that outside of your comfort zone is not a zone of a little less comfort, but rather discomfort.  Maybe even downright pain.  But as you engage in activities that make you uncomfortable, your comfort zone expands. You not only develop your abilities, but what might have been challenging before becomes commonplace and easy.

Some areas where people get uncomfortable: meeting new people, risking failure, saying no, delegating, being wrong, deepening relationships, expressing themselves authentically, saying what they really want, public speaking, etc. Are any of these familiar?

So where are you stuck in the rut that is your comfort zone? Is there something you can do to today to get out of it - get a little UNcomfortable? Just as your physical muscles will only strengthen if you "feel the burn", so too will your ability to navigate through life only grow if push past what you're used to and create that burn in a broader sense.