If you want to create new opportunities to grow your business, the chances are that you’re going to need to step outside of your comfort zone on a fairly regular basis. This is particularly true when you are first starting out as a solopreneur, but it can happen at any and every stage in business.
Whether it’s attending your first face to face networking event, launching your new product or service, running your first masterclass or workshop or putting together a proposal for your services or taking on your first employee. At some point you’re going to be doing something that you’re never done before and it’s more than likely going to take you outside of your comfort zone.
This might seem like a scary thought, but here’s why you should embrace it wholeheartedly
That space outside of your comfort zone is where all the magic happens – it’s where we learn and grow in confidence. The best way to really build confidence is to actually start doing the doing. The more time we spend stepping outside of our comfort zone, the more opportunity we give ourselves to grow in confidence.
How our comfort zone works
Our comfort zone is where we feel most comfortable, like an old pair of comfy slippers we know what to expect, it’s familiar and we tend to feel safe and confident there.
But here’s the thing, if we don’t step out of our comfort zone, we don’t get the opportunity to gain confidence and learn something that we’re not so familiar with. And if we’re not growing our comfort zone, over time it will shrink and what once seemed familiar will start to feel strange and uncomfortable. Remember venturing back out into a crowd for the first time after the covid lockdowns?
No matter how used to something we have been in the past, if we stop doing it for long enough, it won’t feel as comfortable as it once did and it takes a while to regain our confidence.
How the stretch and panic zones work
Stepping out of your comfort zone into stretch, may seem a little daunting at first, but the more time you spend there, the more you look around and enjoy the view from stretch, the more comfortable you start to feel. Spend enough time in stretch and you’re realise that your comfort zone has grown and expanded around you.
It’s a bit like arriving at a new holiday destination – the first day may seem a little unfamiliar as you start to take in your environment, but by the end of the holiday, you’re feeling really at home and don’t want to leave it.
The panic zone on the other hand is not such a great place to be. It’s a step too far too soon and it can leave us feeling overwhelmed and stressed if we unexpectedly find ourselves in the middle of our panic zone. That’s not where we want to be, as we’re not operating at our best, when we’re overcome by stress and worry.
So if you have something that you would like to do that currently has “destination – panic zone” written all over it, the trick is to work out what steps you can take to grow your comfort zone enough so that eventually whatever is in the panic zone will end up in the stretch zone.
Here are a few ways to get started
1. Get into the right mindset
How we think about the event or activity that takes us outside of our comfort zone is a great place to start.
You know that famous quote by Henry Ford: Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right? We need to start believing that we can.
Start with why. Why is this thing important to you? How will it benefit you and how will it benefit your business? Once you’ve spent a bit of time thinking about what the motivation is to do this, start exploring where your resistance is.
2. Identify the fear
Ask yourself what is it that feels scary or uncomfortable in the stretch zone? What are you’re scared of? What are you worried about happening? Write down all of those thoughts and then address them one by one.
Once you know what the fear is you can work on blitzing it, bit by bit.
The aim here is to create some mental resilience around your worries about what could go wrong and does it really matter? Will the thing that you are worrying about still be important in a years time?
Let’s say you’d putting off holding a workshop that you hope would give you visibility and exposure and might lead to potential clients.
And let’s say one of your fears is “what if no-one comes?”
So what if no-one comes? Who’s going to know, other than you? When you look back in a year’s time, will it really matter? Or will you have a great inspirational story to talk about that time when no-one came to your workshop, but the next time you did it there were 5 people and then 10 and now look at how far you’ve come?
When you start breaking down the fear, you can work on reframing it into something more positive and helpful. You may even decide that it’s not quite the big deal that you were thinking it could be.
3. Start with small intentional steps
Once you’ve worked on your mindset, start planning what small steps can you take to start building your confidence. The only real way to expand our comfort zone and get comfortable in what was previously our stretch zone is to start taking action.
So what small thing can you start with that will help you take you closer to your goal. And then what’s the next one. If you can, try to find actions that you enjoy and look forward to doing as this will make taking action so much easier.
Preparing for a presentation or a workshop? Is there someone you can practise with first so that you can run through it with someone else and get some feedback? What other ways can you build up your confidence?
4. Enlist as much support as you can
What support can you draw on to help you step out of your comfort zone more comfortably? Do you need someone who can help you brainstorm ideas, a sounding board to bounce ideas off? Running your own business can be lonely, drawing on as much support as possible can really help when you are about to do something that scares you.
Don’t hesitate to enlist the help of your business friends, accountability partners, memberships, friends, family. Anyone who will help you to feel supported to move forward and take action. And of course, you can always consider working with a coach or mentor to give you that additional support.
5. Celebrate each and every step
As you start to take small steps into your stretch zone and take action, it’s so important to celebrate each and every single step. Be proud of yourself. If you journal, write down what you’re pleased about and why and also what you’re proud of. Doing this will give you a little dopamine hit which will help to keep you positive and motivated to carry on taking small steps.
What are you going to do to step outside of your comfort zone today?
