The Mirror - Comfort Zone
When I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, I faced an unsurmountable task of climbing the world's tallest freestanding mountain. It was a nine-day hike, and I never thought in a million years I would be able to complete the hike successfully. We had a tour guide who spoke Swahili and was native to the local area. He taught us many Swahilian phrases and words, but the most important one shared with us was the Tanzanian phrase, Pole pole. This phrase meant slow and steady. Focus on one step at a time, so even though you were climbing the world's tallest freestanding mountain, you still had to do it one tiny step at a time. And that is how we conquer life we have to climb and surpass all levels of success we ever thought capable of, but we only accomplish that through one step, putting one foot in front of another slowly and confidently. Pole, pole.
You can open any self-help book or fitness guide and be bombarded with slogans about stepping outside your comfort zone, claiming that's where true growth happens. While this may be true, it’s far from an easy journey. Life often does begin at the edge of your comfort zone, but it’s all too easy to fall into the habit of not pushing ourselves. As humans, we tend to favor the path of least resistance, choosing it about 90% of the time. For most, this path is fine, but for some, it's simply not enough. It won’t get us to where we need or want to be in life. And if we choose that path too often, it becomes routine—until one day we find ourselves settling for less and less without even realizing it.
Picture it, Barre Class California Family Fitness in Sacramento, California, 2022. I was a naïve student ready to attend my first barre class, and the instructor was Laura Platt (who I will name now but may remove later). At the beginning of the class, she always did a consistent warm-up or mentor exercise or asked people to be present and "show up". She would pepper the warm-up with motivational mantras like - Thank you for choosing your body, Making the decision to come to the gym was very inspirational, and the first time I heard this was from Laura. She said to do 1% better every day. If you do 1% better every day and 365 days, you will be a completely different person. I love that expression. That is a great way to get into a mental game and mindset, and I genuinely appreciate her giving me that gift. We must learn to reinvent ourselves daily and improve our quality of life by 1%. Think about improving your life and doing 1% better every day. After 365 days, you will completely transform into a new person. Your quality of life would improve, and your quality of health would improve. You literally would reinvent yourself and become a new person. I know this sounds scary, which should be because that is genuinely outside your comfort zone. Pushing yourself to be a better person and become a better human is essential for your own evolution and the evolution of humankind as a whole.
One last thought - Fear is a very unique emotion. I saw a Facebook post where fear stands for "facing everything and rising". If you think about it, that is a great way to approach the emotion of fear by what we are afraid of, either making decisions based on what we fear or making decisions against what we hear. The ultimate self-growth perspective is living outside our comfort zone, and we must be willing to face the fear we have today and grow outside of that. We have a tremendous responsibility to our future selves, so adopt the perspective of facing everything and rise ideally with that agenda to grow out of our comfort zone.
In conclusion, living outside your comfort zone is essential, if not critical, for your survival. Embracing life's uncomfortable and less traveled path will lead to your ultimate self-transformation and personal growth. You will continue to gain momentum and relief as you embrace this new outlook on life. The uncomfortable will become comfortable, and you will truly transform yourself. I believe in you and believe you will forever change your life. Carpe Diem!
