Stress from the Non-Standard

Where is your Comfort Zone?

Our comfort zone isn’t an actual place, but describes the set of behaviors we are comfortable with, things we do that don’t create a sense of risk or make us anxious – where we feel safe and comfortable.

Our Comfort Zone is great when we need to relax, recover, and restore ourselves; to regroup and plan, but it’s not the best place to grow and extend.

For that, we need to leave the safety of our comfort zone. We need to push ourselves to experience the new and unfamiliar.

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Exercising your mental muscles

If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, there’s little growth.

Your mental muscle (ie – your brain) is no different than your physical muscles. Both need to be used, to be exercised, in order to grow stronger.

If you put yourself in new environments, find new opportunities, and face new challenges, you can expand your horizons and grow. After repeated exposure to those new things, they become familiar and our comfort zone expands to include them.

Fly the friendly skies – was meant to reduce your anxiety about flying

I’m relatively new at this “travel for business” thing. Sure, I’ve done it and can make my way through the process, but it still stresses me.

Not from a “gads this is stressful” point of view, but from an “I don’t know why, but I’m all tired out” experience – and you don’t actually do anything when you’re flying!

You wait, sit, wait, and sit some more.

Since it isn’t physically taxing, the tiredness is my mind’s way of saying “I’m dealing with unfamiliar surroundings, crowds, and activity; man this is tiring”.

More than two, less than a dozen…

I’m not sure how many trips it’ll take, but getting stressed out about the travel is getting old. And while I typically enjoy new and different things, I think I’ll be happy to get over this and have my comfort zone grow to include this activity. Then I can focus on all of the other interesting things going on around me and not get so tired just sitting and waiting;-)