COMFORT ZONE - TO EXIT OR NOT TO EXIT?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

“Get out of your comfort zone! Development is possible only outside the comfort zone! 3 reasons why you need to step out of your comfort zone! How to get out of your comfort zone? 10 ways to get out of your comfort zone!” -This is a short list of article titles if you ask Google about your comfort zone. And not a single designation, even Wikipedia is silent, in the Ukrainian version there is a note that refers to the book of the same name by Brian Tracy, which promotes getting out of the comfort zone, this source can hardly be called liquid.

I wanted to find a psychological definition, some research on the comfort zone, but I couldn't find anything like that.

Then I read several popular articles about the comfort zone in order to somehow understand what all these psychologists themselves know about the comfort zone, how they define it. And that's what I found, from this definition will start.

The comfort zone is an area of living space that gives a feeling of comfort and safety. And this is not about the material arrangement, but about the psychological environment.

Popular psychology claims that being in the comfort zone for a long time, degradation awaits you, that your dreams and outstanding results, your whole life is just outside the comfort zone.

But is it?

To figure it out, I did some analysis and found that the popular exhortation to get out of your comfort zone contradicted some of the accepted psychological theories and concepts. But first things first…

Maslow's pyramid, it is one of the most popular hierarchies of human needs, on it needs are distributed as they grow. Maslow explained this construction by the fact that a person cannot experience high-level needs while he needs more primitive things. (And this is an important point !!!)

Comfort Zone and Maslow's PyramidComfort Zone and Maslow's Pyramid

At the bottom is physiology (satisfying hunger, thirst, sexual needs, etc.). A step higher is the need for security, above it is the need for affection and love, as well as for belonging to a social group. The next step is the need for respect and approval, over which Maslow placed cognitive needs (the thirst for knowledge, the desire to perceive as much information as possible). This is followed by the need for aesthetics (the desire to harmonize life, fill it with beauty and art). And finally, the last step of the pyramid, the highest, is the striving to reveal the inner potential (it is self-actualization). It is important to note that each of the needs does not have to be fully satisfied - partial saturation is enough to move on to the next step.

Suppose that for us there were no problems with the satisfaction of physiological needs, we can fully feed ourselves, we have a place to live.

So, as people are creatures who are aimed at survival, then this is considered the innate minimum that is inherent in everyone, without it a person would not have survived.

And so, a person satisfied his physiological needs, which are at the base of the pyramid, and moved to the next level, and still was able to satisfy the need for security, this is understood as stability, the need for protection, freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos.

The more economically stable a society is, the easier it is to satisfy the need for security, naturally in a constantly changing political situation, in wars where disorder and chaos prevail, a person will be directed first of all to satisfy the need for security, and will be on this step until he feels that there is no more danger. Also, being stuck on this need can cause psychological trauma in childhood, when we feel the world brighter and more intensely, when quarrels, scandals, separation from one of the parents, divorce or death of one of the parents can lead to a loss of a sense of security. Without the help of a specialist, neurotics will hardly be able to satisfy this need. But let's take the average healthy person who is all right and has this need satisfied.

Then he went to satisfy the needs of a higher level and everything worked out for him, so a person reached the upper level - to self-actualization, here everything is most beloved for popular psychology, self-realization of potential, self-improvement and endless improvement of oneself, the same notorious personality development, about which everything chatter madly.

A person by nature strives for development, this is how our psyche works, but here he is faced with popular psychology, which tells him that in order to develop, he needs to get out of the comfort zone, that is, you need to shatter the stability of your psyche, get out of the state of security.

But here lies the delusional idea of leaving the comfort zone, a person cannot experience the needs of a higher level until the needs of a lower level are satisfied. A person outside the comfort zone cannot begin to engage in self-development. CAN'T, he will start satisfying all basic needs again.

Loosening your psyche will not lead to anything good.

And that's not all, there is still something to say. Supporters of leaving the comfort zone shout that we need to try new things there, take risks, destroy stereotypes, that we are too comfortable in the comfort zone and we live by patterns, etc.

But there is a nuance, in order to try new things, we need to take risks, but we can take risks only when we feel safe.

The lower the baseline security level, the lower the level of risk you can take. Leaving your comfort zone lowers your safety, and increases your stress and anxiety levels, which are bad companions in personality development.

Of course, if you find yourself in an extreme, critical situation, your forces are activated, and you can take any big risks to survive. But it only works in critical situations, such as: wars, diseases, natural disasters, outbreaks of crime, social crises, neuroses, brain damage, as well as situations characterized by chronically unfavorable, threatening conditions.

When you specifically create conditions in which you shatter your psyche, it will not lead to anything good.

Why am I all this, development is possible in the comfort zone!

It happens there softer and more environmentally friendly, as for me. I will not speak to you for the whole of Odessa, but I will share my phenomenological observations, tobezh my personal experience.

When I was 22, I had dreams of becoming a geophysicist, I had a corresponding diploma, but I didn’t happen to become a scientist, and with this wonderful diploma and dream I went to work at a bank. I issued consumer loans in a home appliance store, and one of my responsibilities was “active sales,” which meant that I had to approach people in the store and offer to get a loan from our bank.

Was I outside my comfort zone at this moment? Oh yeah! Did I do something new and unusual? Oh yeah! And I did it, I felt bad, I was in terrible stress, anxiety spilled out wonderfully into psychosomatics, which I did not know anything about then, I came home as work and sobbed. And all the adults repeated to me that this is adult life, that this new experience will be very useful to me, I can’t do without it, and in general it’s time to get used to all this, this is, as it were, adulthood.

I didn’t like overpowering myself since childhood, from which I was always considered a person who throws everything halfway. And then I made several attempts to apply this new skill of mine in other activities, I tried myself in the role of a wholesale sales manager, and withstood about two weeks, then switched to financial consulting and withstood about two months.

I had a new experience and a developed sales skill that made me sick, but I knew how to do it. And well, by the way, I attended all sorts of trainings, where I always showed excellent results. And working in this direction, I could achieve excellent results, I was always, for some reason, considered ambitious.

Now, 5 years later, when I am offered to develop a skill, I ask myself how comfortable I will be with this skill, do I need it, and if the answer is negative, then I send very far all lovers of self-improvement and learning new boundaries of their capabilities … Because I know that not every skill I need, there are people who are rushing from sales, which is great, but that does not mean that I need this skill. There are people who like extreme sports, and this is the only way they celebrate the fullness of life, but this does not mean that I need it.

But back to our rams … Did I leave the comfort zone for these years and a half, and how, I was even scared to dream about the comfort zone …

After the crisis, in which I, of course, found myself, after everything, I firmly decided that I needed to do something with this fucking life so that I would not be sick of it at least, such a minimum.

Then I became an administrator, and finally, after a year and a half, I felt good. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t do anything new, everything was new there too and there were some drawbacks, but what I did didn’t go against my gut. That work was not such a strong irritant, I was able to relax. Relax enough to feel safe. And think about what to do in my life, where I can apply myself.

And then, in a comfortable zone for myself, I was able to determine the direction, enroll in psychology courses, figure out what it is, while still in the comfort zone, go and enter another city and get a second higher education, and study and study further.

All my 27 years I have been developing exclusively in the comfort zone.

For me, the comfort zone is the same as for all these lovers of popular psychology, an area of living space that gives a feeling of comfort and safety.

Only I do not consider the feeling of comfort, being in a familiar and familiar environment, as something that threatens my development.

The comfort zone is not a constant, it is a process.

Lovers of leaving the comfort zone argue that in the comfort zone we no longer feel the colors of life, we follow stereotyped behavior, most often, which leads to failure, we live by stereotypes.

It might seem like this only if you consider your comfort zone as something permanent. And the comfort zone is a process. Like all life, in other ways.

I read advertising slogans in popular articles that call to take another training “Stop working at a job that you don’t like, get out of your comfort zone!”, “As long as you can be in a relationship that doesn’t suit you - get out of your comfort zone!” “How long can you live in a routine - get out of your comfort zone!”.

And I have a question, where did you get the idea that this is a comfort zone? How can a job that I do not like, in which there is no decent salary, no development that makes me sick, can be my comfort zone? How can a relationship that is no longer intimate be a comfort zone? The answer is no way! Because this is not a comfort zone!

Let's once again, the comfort zone, this is the state in which you feel good, you understand GOOD! If you don't feel good, then this is no longer your comfort zone.

You need to constantly look for a zone of comfort, it is not always, it is a process that changes along with the whole life, with the needs that appear.

The comfort zone is like a fishing place, you find a place where fish is found by trial and error, and you catch it only there, but everything changes, and one fine day you realize that there are no more fish here. And then you need to insert and look for a new fish spot. Perhaps the problem is that there are people who stay in the old place, and wait for the catch, and are angry that there is no more catch. He will not be, you need to look for a new place where fish is found.

And this is important, if from my point of view you look at the comfort zone, if you turn on logic and understand a little scientific psychology, then you will see that the comfort zone is the most suitable place for development. You need to take care of yourself, not succumb to the provocations of the mainstream movements of popular psychology, always be sensitive to yourself and your needs, and then life will not look like a series of obstacles and obstacles, then you can see simple entrances and exits. If, of course, you want it …

And finally: Develop where you want it!

Psychologist, Miroslava Miroshnik, miroslavamiroshnik.com