Stepping outside of your comfort zone!

Have you ever felt like you wanted to say something or do something but never had the “gutts” to do it? I’m not talking about going sky diving, or doing something illegal… I’m talking about the comfort zone. What is the comfort zone you ask? It is anything that is safe and familiar. Anything that you are used to, that you’re afraid to change and has zero risk involved.

So this can be your group of friends, your regular activities, your school, your current job that you’ve become comfortable with, etc… And this is also your level of comfort in being yourself around new people. Most people who are afraid to stepping outside of their comfort zone are worried about what others think of them, don’t take much risk in life and have a harder time being themselves around people they meet. And that seriously sucks, and is why I wanted to discuss it a bit today and tell you why it’s important to step outside of your comfort zone.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone allows you to learn more about yourself, grow as a person and it’s honestly super liberating once you start doing it regularly. Think about it, it’s the people who aren’t afraid of making a fool out of themselves that are the people who are the most memorable in life! Stepping outside of your comfort zone can be hard, but if you never do it, your life will most likely be pretty boring. People complain a lot about this, “Ugghh my life sucks… Why doesn’t anything exciting happen to me? Why aren’t I enjoying life as much as this person or that person?”

Let me tell you why! Because you don’t do anything out of the ordinary or that you feel uncomfortable doing! You don’t take opportunities that are presented to you because you are too scared! You care too much what others think of you, and don’t want people to think your weird! But let me tell you a secret… being weird is actually the equivalent of being awesome. This is not a joke, I am serious!

Here’s a list of things I’ve done in the past year that I had to step outside of my comfort zone to do, and that I am pretty proud of :

- Stood up for myself

- Voiced my opinion on social media and in real life

- Attended parties where I only knew 1 person

- Frosh guide for the school’s student body – by myself, not knowing anybody

- Frosh guide next year for my faculty – without any close friends

- Hosted a couple parties

- Became Director of translation for my student council for year 2014-2015

- Moved out of my parent’s house, into a house with 4 girls, all of whom I didn’t know

- Decided to go on exchange for one semester studying in Hong Kong!

Now, after taking all of those steps, which weren’t the easiest to do, I guess you could say that now I am pretty comfortable stepping outside of my comfort zone, if that makes any sense! But I am so glad I was able to do those things. Because of it, I met so many new people, which some are now very good friends of mine, made plenty of new memories, built my confidence, pushed myself, and I have absolutely zero regrets! I still have some work to do, sometimes I’m still afraid of what others will think of me, or I have a hard time being myself around new people, but it is something I work on every day and I have made so much progress from last year.

If you can do one small thing, even if it’s just going to a different bar than the one you usually go to, or if its standing up for yourself or for a friend. Trust me, once you start doing little things like that, it will become easier and easier to continue stepping outside of your comfort zone. You will grow as a person, become more confident and simply feel more alive! It’s amazing!

Trust me, making the decision to go to Hong Kong for a semester wasn’t an easy one, it is probably the most adventurous thing I’ve ever done. Going to the other side of the planet, all by myself and where the culture is extremely different, I think it’s the most I’ve ever stepped outside of my comfort zone, and as much as it was scary, I am SO happy! I am super excited, and proud of myself for doing this, I can’t wait! But if it weren’t for all of the other smaller steps I took, this probably would have been too scary for me.

So I challenge everyone to do one small thing, something “risky”, and by risky I don’t mean dangerous or illegal lol, I mean something like the things I listed. You will feel great after and you will have that excitement in life you are looking for!