Dear friend,

I used to try really hard to fit in, go along with the crowd, do what I thought was “normal”. While some people pride themselves on being different, I wanted so so badly to blend in. I didn’t want any sort of judgment coming my way on how I looked, what I did for a living, or how I thought. To me, if I disappeared into normal-ness, it’d make for a comfortable life. 

When I reached my early 30s I realized that fitting in actually denies us of who we really are.

At that point my life was screaming at me that what I was doing was not working. As much as I tried to fight it off, the nudge toward embracing my true self started to emerge. I began to read new kinds of spiritual books, I dove headfirst into self help, and began exploring alternative career paths like life coaching. 

This both excited and scared me.

Who was I without all the “normal” things in my life?, I often thought, and how would I even start to take steps toward this new kind of life I wanted to embrace? 

I continued to hide/deny/avoid this part of me for another couple years. I decided to spend thousands of dollars on a masters degree in HR, rather than the life coaching certification I preferred, simply because I thought corporate HR was much more acceptable to the world than peculiar life coach.

Eventually I realized that this comfort zone I was choosing to stay in for safety actually felt anything BUT comfortable. I see now that my comfort zone may have been familiar but it sure wasn’t comfortable. 

Have you ever felt like that? Maybe it’s with a job that drains you or a relationship that feels like it’s past its expiration date, or, like me, trying to be someone that you’re not. It’s easy to confuse what is familiar with being comfortable but often times when it comes to making changes, those things we think keep us comfortable are in fact making us extremely uncomfortable. 

And that discomfort can be a sign that we’re growing and ready for something new.

But in order to get out of the familiar, we’ve got to get out of our comfort zone and this too is uncomfortable.

I’m a believer in easing out of comfort zones. I don’t subscribe to the idea of taking massive action and staying in the constant hustle. For me, that way doesn’t work and it feels exhausting to just think about. 

Sometimes those big leaps of faith are necessary but you get to them by taking small steps of courage first.

I like to think of comfort zones as having a range, like on  a scale of 1-10. Let’s say 1 is pure boredom, 5 is comfort, and 10 is heart pounding out of your chest uncomfortable – to maintain healthy growth in life its seems to me we should be operating between 6-8, where we are pushing ourselves gradually and our comfort zone then expands more and more but at a natural pace. If we are operating at 10 all the time, it’s hard to stay at a centered, sane place…not to mention that can quickly lead to burnout.  

In my experience any time I’ve tried to make a change but felt paralyzed in fear it meant I was trying to take too big of a step out of my comfort zone. 

I’m happy to say that I did eventually go through the life coach program and slowly over these 10 years have stepped out of my comfort zone. I still feel scared a lot of the time but the small steps have helped.

Friend, one thing I know for sure is that stepping out of our comfort zone will never not feel awkward. I often remind myself of what Brene Brown says – that we experience breakthroughs by going toward the thing we fear and learning to normalize the discomfort. In my experience the easiest way to do that is to take tiny steps toward the thing we want. Operating at a 6 for a while, then a 7, eventually an 8 and slowly over time we get closer and closer to the thing that once felt so out of reach.

There is no rush to this thing. Your speed really does not matter; simply keep showing up and keep pushing yourself a little more and more. You will get there.  

Our courage is like a muscle, the more we use it the more it grows. 

You got this.

Love,
Laura