Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

We all like to live within our comfort zone, it's human nature. However, we let our fears of the unknown hold us back. Fear of failure comes to mind as a huge reason to stay in our comfort zone. I have seen some people whom have never failed, go ballistic and lose it the first time they failed. Imagine an A student who always got straight A's and never experienced any type of failure. They get to high school and WHAM! They get their first failing test! They hide the grade from their parents in fear that they won't understand, and continue to struggle since they never experienced this before. They don't seek help as everyone expects them to always get straight A's. Soon more failing test grades happen, and their overall grade falls. Desperate, they might do something unthinkable like cheat, but hopefully they realize that failure is not a permanent place. It is their choice to decide to stay in the perils of their situation, or move forward and work out of their comfort zone and move towards success.
I made mistakes when I was a teen, as I was a perfectionist, and it took til' high school for me to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I was taking honors classes, and extra class one hour before school, had a job at McDonald's and was sports, jazz band, symphonic, and marching band that traveled every weekend. I started to struggle and I kept doing what I always did, instead of making adjustments to succeed. I didn't fail a class, but my grades did slip way below my potential, because I refused to adjust. If you keep doing the same thing, expecting different results, you are fooling yourself. I sure did!
We all think we can do it all, and things will happen when we work hard, but sometimes you need to work smarter, not harder! So many teachers just say, "Work hard." I believe its more like, work on something, evaluate if it's working, then adjust to keep focused on your goal.
It's easy to make a goal and think if you stay on the right track, success will be waiting, but again, it's a series of adjustments. See the figure below.

You will stray away from your goal, then have to pull back and make adjustments. You might be pulled in the other direction, but again, you pull yourself back toward the goal. Success may take a series of minor failures, but you can do it! It takes grit, gumption, persistence, to tell yourself don't give up, it's okay to fail, and move forward.
Often with my former 6th graders, I would start of the school year, saying YOU WILL FAIL! The sheer horror on the faces of the honor students was by far bigger than the kids that slipped up on occasion. Some kids that had experienced it before, and had moved on, had a new confidence on their face as they realized, "Yeah, it happens, but it's not permanent." It took awhile to get the class to understand that it isn't a life sentence, but failure is another opportunity to learn more intelligently.
If you like science, any experiment usually has some type of failure the first time, or at least a series of tests happen to avoid the overall experiment failing.
Now back to the comfort zone. It may take baby steps to push yourself, but even with 2 steps forward, and one step back, you are still making progress. If you fall five times and get up six, you are still up!
Is it so bad to take a risk? Most students fail to ask questions because they are too embarrassed to say a wrong answer. But if you don't take the risk, you never know! Yes, it can be embarrassing to ask a question, but it's all in perspective. Sometimes I will be in a meeting and I'm not listening or I get sidetracked for some reason. I miss something and I'm lost. It takes a lot of courage, in front of the entire staff and your boss to say, "I'm sorry, but can you repeat, because I got distracted." Now that is better than assuming I know what is going on, and attempt to do it on my own without knowing, and hope I get it right. But to know I get it right, sometimes you have to just take a risk and put yourself out there. No one enjoys putting yourself in a situation that can result in embarrassment but in the long run it is worth it.
I have learned that sometimes asking questions or investigating can lead to great things! So many times I have asked complete strangers a question, and it lead to a friendship or more! My first job outside of high school, was me asking the owner, "I wonder what it is like to work here?" I ended up getting to know dozens of friends in college, but asking a girl to help me out and play on my softball team because I was short a player! We started a conversation after, and I met tons of new people that I still hang out with today! Now I'm not saying just hang out and talk to strangers of course, but sometimes putting yourself out there can benefit you. Even with guys! For some reason shy guys are attracted to me, but they are just too shy to speak up. I ask them out! The fear of rejection, can make it challenging, but you just let it roll like water off a duck's back.
Once while living in Los Angeles, I noticed a TV actor working out at my gym. I decided, "Hey, why not ask him out? What is the worst that could happen? He could be rude, mean, or it might be fun to see how he reacts." So I play it off like I don't know who he is, I smile, say hi. He smiles back and I ask him if he would like to go out for coffee after the gym. He holds up his left hand and shows me his wedding ring! Yikes!! I laugh embarrassingly but he smiles and says, "No big deal, you didn't know." Instead of walking off in horror, I was like, "Cool. I always have that story and know he's a nice person even if he's taken!"
The more you take risks, and pull away from your comfort zone, your confidence increases and you don't take failure so seriously! Again, I'm not saying take a risk and jump out of an airplane without a parachute, but sane risks can benefit in the long run!
Happy Health!