Expanding My Comfort Zone: A therapist takes her own advice.

My latest blog discussed the importance of not going outside your comfort zone to reach your goals because this can cause stress and anxiety, which hinders your progress. Rather, the key is expanding your comfort zone by using the skills, tools and your personal characteristics to stay in a place of calm confidence when trying something new or pursuing a goal.

I wanted to share with you what this looks like when I take my own advice, which I don’t always do.

Last month I attended a local county fair to share resources about mental health and stress management with the department of corrections staff and their families. I’d never done an event before and didn’t know what to expect. With less than two weeks’ notice to plan, my anxiety wanted me to expect the worst.

People often confuse the comfort zone with the complacent zone. They think staying comfortable means not growing or accepting challenges. That’s actually being complacent. For me, that would have been my introverted self saying “That’s a lot of people. Let’s just stay home with a good book instead.” And I would have avoided doing something new, learning from the experience and growing as a person and professional in this case.

My first response slipped me into the survival zone. I felt pressured, stressed and anxious. I started thinking of all the things I needed to do to prepare. I didn’t even own a folding table to do an event. I thought of anxiety filled worse case scenarios: What if I take a bathroom break and someone steals my chair? Yes, anxiety is crazy like that. I was freaking out about all these new things I’d never done before and would be forced to do. Talking to groups of people, strangers staring at me, maybe asking what right I had to be there, this is way outside my comfort zone of just a single person sitting on my purple couch.

Staying outside my comfort zone interfered with my ability to sleep that first night after I got the approval call that I could be there. I was less focused the next day with my clients. Mostly for lack of sleep but also because I was worried about this event and thinking of all I had to do to get ready. Stress and anxiety weren’t pushing me to hustle, do better, do more and succeed. I was failing at just forming sentences. I truly do not function on no sleep.

I had to get back to my comfort zone and remember what I’m good at already, what I’m comfortable with already and then expand it into a new area. I’m great at planning, organizing, and making to do lists. I started there and made a list of the things I needed to do to make this happen. Anxiety isn’t bad. It has a function. Anxiety tells you to make an action plan to address the potential threat, in this case of failure, rejection, and appearing stupid in front of strangers.

I’m also great at my job which actually is talking to strangers when they are new clients, making them feel comfortable, making small talk before diving deep and having a sense of humor. My comfort zone is doing it one on one with clients. I expanded this by seeing each person who approached my table as just one person I was talking to, even if there’s five more people standing there. I only had to focus on that one person at a time. I could do that.

My comfort zone includes making things pretty. I love playing in Canva to create social media posts, flyers, handouts and cards. I expanded this to make flyers, postcards, door hangers and bookmarks to hand out as promotional materials. That was fun and used my creative right brain to get me out of the overthinking, analyzing left brain.

My comfort zone also includes food. I love to cook, bake, and of course eat! I brought brownies, cookies and cinnamon rolls to hand out to the people at the event. Turned out their kids loved it and came to my table for the sweets. Talking to kids is totally in my comfort zone after working with kids for ten years before getting into corrections and having 12 nieces and nephews of my own. I was definitely in my zone with them. Being in a state of flow, feeling comfortable, made it easier to then turn and talk to their parents about what I had to offer.

The day of the event came and where I was supposed to park was completely flooded. There’s only so much planning you can do before life throws a curveball. Instead of getting stressed, I just kept expanding my comfort zone. I am completely comfortable being lost and asking for directions. This wasn’t always the case.

I used to hate looking like I didn’t know something. But after spending an ungodly amount of money in grad school, I realized I was paying for knowledge. If my comfort zone was to be educated, I love learning new things in all areas of life, then the best way to get knowledge was by asking questions. Now of course you can just Google and YouTube any questions but sitting in class I just had to ask. After that, I felt comfortable saying “I don’t know what I’m doing, can you show me? Can you help me?”

So that day, I asked. And actually no one knew where I was supposed to go since the parking lot was closed. I kept driving to the next person and the next person and asking where do I go? After the fourth person, she called her boss who came up with the golf cart and led me to where I needed to be.

The event was a new experience I learned from. I expanded my comfort zone and now could do another event if the opportunity arises, especially since now I own a table. It went smoothly when I stayed in my zone of confidence, comfort, and using my skills of talking to people just one at a time, having a sense of humor and sharing my passion for helping officers. And hey, no one stole my chair so that’s a win.

I hope this helps you see how expanding your comfort zone will help you reach your goals with less stress than pushing yourself outside it.