How to get out of your comfort zone

Do you know why you don’t achieve all the things you set yourself to achieve every single new year? It’s called your comfort zone and you just hate to leave it! You hate to leave it because it’s…well, it’s comfortable!

Look, you are not alone. The majority of people don’t get fit, don’t lose the weight, don’t get the muscles, don’t change their jobs or progress and pretty much stay the same or get worse. Getting out of your comfort zone is not easy. It requires a few things that you may not be doing.

Firstly you need to realise that those people that ARE achieving things are not doing what you are doing. They are way out of their comfort zone. In fact, the better they are doing, the more they are out of their comfort zone. Once they get comfortable with their new ways, they get out of THAT comfort zone too! That’s the only way to progress and better yourself, whether it is in your job or in the gym.

How many people do you know in your office that do the same job day in and day out? And how many superstars do you know? And most of the time, the others try and put the superstars down because even “seeing” someone do better than them is not good for them and their comfort zone!

You want to better yourself this year? Then try the following

1. Set a goal in every area of your life. Don’t make it a goal that you just know you won’t achieve. Make it a reasonable one but one that you will have to make an effort for.

For example, you don’t have to change radically in the office but you CAN set yourself the goal of doing ONE thing extra every day. One thing that will make a different to your productivity. The same goes for the gym. If you never go to the gym, then set a goal to go once a week at least. If you are doing the same thing in the gym all the time, then set the goal to do 5 more minutes on the cardio machines or 2 more reps per exercise.

2. Write down your goals and monitor your progress. Take photos, write down your achievements and make sure you are taking notes.

3. Don’t compare yourself to others or try and out-do them. You are only in competition with yourself and if you are doing better than your historic self, then that is great.

4. Try and avoid negative people and those that don’t want to get out of their comfort zones. Yes, this can mean avoiding certain people in the office or ditching some friends and relatives - again too many people are “comfortable” with the same negativity around them because it is familiar. Get rid of familiar.

5. Any progress is better than no progress. Never put yourself down or have too high expectations that you may not reach. Take one step and one day at a time and as long as you are not static or going backwards, then you are doing OK.

6. Try new things. Take a different route to work, get off one stop earlier on the train, go to a new place, talk to new people. New is good. New and different things are great for getting you out of your comfort zone.

7. Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) says “winning starts with beginning” so BEGIN. Take one step and remember it can lead to 2 steps and 3 and so on.

8. They say that “fear” is the number 1 reason why we don’t get out of our comfort zones or we regress back into it. Where do you hold fear in your body? Study it and try and eliminate it. You can try repeating the mantra “I am fearless” loudly, several times a day. Try it!

9. Remember your best accomplishments. Put photos of them around you and remind yourself of them. Remember what they felt like, smelt like, looked like. Take yourself back and when you get that feeling again, make a fist and say YEAH! Keep doing this with past accomplishments and then try doing the fist and a YEAH every day when you feel you are being lazy.

10. Ask yourself the question: “what would happen if I did….?”. So, what would happen if I go to the gym today? What would happen if I do some extra work today? The worst thing is inaction!

Make this year different. Say “do it now” to yourself when you find yourself lazying back into your old ways. DO IT NOW. It means getting up and getting on with it. No procrastination and no mulling it over. DO IT NOW!

All the best!

Parham Donyai

Founder, LA Muscle

PS - If you are REALLY lazy and find it hard to get motivated, try Limitless.