![]() Hear me out – we’ve all done the thing in a new presentation when we look for a friendly face in the audience (or even take a friend with us). It’s all about incremental growth rather than random jumps.Īs Csikszentmihalyi says, you should be working in your area of ‘Flow’ where things are hard enough to be challenging rather than boring, but not so hard as you freak out. ![]() Work there until it’s no challenge and gradually move on. If your comfort zone has no hard edge it implies there’s an area where you’re a bit anxious but basically you’ve got it under control. Don’t jump out of your comfort zone… gradually expand it. Problem one is a good place to start, ‘cos the solution is reasonably obvious. So if jumping out of your comfort zone is dumb, what should we be doing, smartarse? There’s a reason your current role exists. Before you think making that effort, just do a check that there’s a sufficient need to justify it even if you succeed. Jumping out of your comfort zone takes energy and effort. So ask yourself, before you jump out of your comfort zone, why do I need to change anyway? By definition there’s a need for what I’m doing! Is there a way for evolution rather than revolution? Is there really a need to jump out of comfort zone or are you going to feel dumb when you jump, only to discover the grass wasn’t really greener on the other side? If there wasn’t both of those thing, your role and hence your comfort zone, wouldn’t exist! Presumably you’re there because you’re good at what you do and there was a need for someone to do it. This one isn’t really about not jumping out so much as considering why you’re in your comfort zone in the first place. ![]() Jumping out of your comfort zone is dumb #3 – you’re in your zone for a reason So the next time you’re thinking about jumping out of your comfort zone ask yourself what you can do to recover if things go wrong – because statistically that’s the most likely outcome. In fact, crash-and-burn is a common outcome. Few if any? Yeah – but it’s not because there’s no crash-and-burn, is it?! Ask yourself how many people are talking about jumping out of their comfort zone and doing a crash-and-burn. The problem with that is called Survivor Bias. Sure, you’ve also probably seen the stuff about people who proudly brag about how following advice about “jumping out of your comfort zone” was the best thing they ever did because it led to their biggest successes. Not only does that mean your presentations are more likely to go wrong, but you’ll not know what to do when it does. That means that jumping out of your comfort zone means you’re jumping to an area where you’ve got fewer technical skills and (by definition!) no experience. The reason you’re in your comfort zone is because you’re good at the things you do inside it – by definition you’re not going to be good at those things outside your comfort zone. You’ve probably seen the meme to the effect that “the fun stuff happens outside your comfort zone” with the image that suggests all you need to do is make the jump – the big jump – all the way to the fun stuff. ![]() Remember the thrill of being almost out of control? Jumping out of your comfort zone is dumb #2 – you’ll crash and burn There wasn’t any jumping out of your comfort zone – what there was was a gradual stretching of it. Well okay, if you were taught to ride a bike by my Dad you didn’t have all of those, but you get the idea □ The point is that you started in safe ways, with support and gradually got better and more confident all the time… and here’s the important thing, you did it gradually. didn’t have lots of tech/gadgets like gears.How did you learn to ride a bike? It wasn’t a binary thing where one day you couldn’t do it but the next day you could. It’s dumb to try and jump over a non-existent boundary and thinking of it this way stops you making progress.
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