Why step out of your comfort zone

This concept was initially introduced by Albert Bandura, a psychologist who developed Social Learning Theory, which explains the regulation of motivation and human action. Therefore, as you push out of you comfort zone and test yourself, you will see how mastering certain skills will increase your confidence. A positive sense of self-efficacy is associated with positive thoughts and aspirations, less stress and anxiety. Nothing bad about that! It will help you continue your personal development.

When we are young, we are more likely to take risks. As we get older, we begin to fear failure. This fear takes a serious emotional toll on us unless we change the way we think. This causes our personality to not develop and does not allow the exploration and experimentation of our world. There is no learning without some difficulty. If you want to keep growing, you must overcome the fear of failure.

Because of these tendencies, your brain craves routine. More on why in a minute. Getting out of your comfort zone is hard because humans are wired to expect the worst-case scenario. Your brain wants to keep you safe, so you have a natural negativity bias — a stronger reaction to actual or anticipated negative events.

If the scenario already occurred, studies show people tend to give more weight to negative events. Say you rated a situation on a scale, one being the worst and 10 being the best.

This thought process carries over to predicting outcomes. Researchers hooked participants up to electrodes to measure brain activity during positive and negative stimuli.

Negative stimuli created stronger activity than positive stimuli, even though the stimuli were equally probable to happen in real life and they were equally extreme. Researchers found that mindfulness reduces negativity bias.

There are a zillion ways to be more mindful. One that you can do throughout the day is to intentionally shift your habits and patterns. Yes, that means getting out of your comfort zone, even if only a little. On this episode of Bulletproof Radio , Pedram Shojai offers some small tweaks you can make for a frequent boost of low-level stress that will shake you awake. Good things can happen, or bad things can happen, and you go for it anyway.

Most of the time, taking a calculated risk produces a favorable outcome. Forcing yourself into discomfort then seeing the result will keep you pushing yourself. Sure, things can go the other way, and results can range from disappointing to the worst outcome you considered. When you feel in control, you can deal with anything that comes out of it. Your needs are met, you have zero stress, and your brain recognizes that the body is surviving.

In order to maximize performance, you need to be up against it from time to time. You will learn that failure is rare because the most common outcomes are success, learning, and growth. You learn the most when things don't go perfectly. If you are determined to try new things and grow, you will focus on what you are learning and forget about failure. As your comfort zone expands, you will see new opportunities previously obscured by barriers of your own making.

Staying in your comfort zone is like wearing blinders. You will tell yourself that all you care about are the things that are already a part of your life. You will continually convince yourself that you dislike the things you've never tried. They just aren't for you.

And with every such thought, you erect thicker walls between yourself and everything that makes you uncomfortable. Take some risks and the walls start coming down. Life can be tough. Things can happen that will yank you right out of your comfortable nest. The more open you are to new possibilities, the more diverse your experiences, and the more confident you are in your ability to face new situations, the more resilient you will be.

New experiences can change everything about what you believe, what you like to do, how you behave, and how you live. The possibilities are truly endless. Are you feeling inspired to take some risks and try something you've been avoiding? I hope so! You'll probably do great! If not, you'll learn. Go for it!

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