Living outside your comfort zone
A saying that can feel like over prescribed advice. Why is it so important, isn’t being comfortable a good thing? Growth lives on the other side of discomfort.
I try to jump before thinking how I’m going to land. It’s the overthinking mind that can quickly talk you out of achieving your goals and prevent you from living boldly. When you push yourself to achieve what you deem as impossible, you feel empowered, confident and more doors of opportunity open up.
It’s not that easy to live uncomfortably. Your mind can be a master manipulator aka mother fucka!
The mind protects us by manifesting all the reasons it won’t work disguised as real problems. This can lead to analysis paralysis, and prevent you from moving forward.
Just Go For It!
Below you’ll find what’s helped me quiet my mind and move towards your dreams.
1. Think of one thing that you’re proud of achieving in your life. Something you felt was a big accomplishment. In this chapter of my life, it’s driving down our narrow street without scratching the car!
What seems small to others can be a big deal for you. The good thing is, it’s not about other people. This is about you quieting that voice in your head that says it’s impossible. Once you have it, write it down on an index card. This is going to become the fuel that keeps you trying.
Every year since I was about 15 years old I had the idea of writing on an index card something I wanted to achieve or remember. I put that card in my pillow case, and at night when I was sleeping I thought it would help to put it in the forefront of my mind to make it come true. Maybe my subconscious could have a conversation with my conscious mind. When I was awake I would start to believe and see things with a different perspective. It may sound cheesy, but what do you have to lose!
Every year I would come up with the goals I wanted to work towards that year and write them on a card.
Here’s an example of my index cards. They’ll evolve as you grow, it’s great to hold on to them and reflect back on that growth.
When I was a teenage girl writing them it was more about having big boobs and growing to be 5’9”, but hey my intention was in the right place!
2. Sound the alarm to your overthinking mind.
When we had the idea to retire early and move to Spain with our 4 cats in our 40s it sounded insane. It sounded the alarm to wake up my overthinking mind.
My thoughts sounded something like:
“Aren’t we too young to retire”
“Will we have enough money”
“ We don’t speak the language,
“How will we bring our cats there”
“How will we sell all our businesses our house, our things”
“ We love our house now, what if we hate it there”
“Can I buy the makeup I like there” yes this was a genuine fear!
When you wrote down your big dream, what popped in your head of all the reasons you couldn’t do it, write those down.
3. Make small digestible steps towards achieving your “impossible” goal.
It’s impossible until it’s done. The only way you can quiet the mind is to take action, and prove it to your mind you can achieve it. Once you accomplish a goal you didn’t think was possible you level up and want to do something bigger.
Think of it like working out your confidence muscles. Each day you’re doing an exercise by achieving one step towards your goal, before you know it your confidence will be more fit and your dream will become your reality.
Taking your aspiration you wrote down, create an outline with actionable steps to get there. I’ll use our moving to Spain as an example.
Big dream “Move to Spain”
Tasks to get there
Buy a house
Sell Businesses
Sell House
Sell belongings
Ship belongings
Get visas
Get cats travel ready
Now take each task and break them down even smaller
Buy a house in Spain
Research areas
Find a realtor
Book a trip to look at homes in person
Continue for each task until it’s broken down to very small manageable steps and assign a deadline of completion. When you make each goal more digestible for your mind your fear starts to dissipate and be more open to progressing in your goals.
Think of your aspirations like following a recipe, you think of what to cook or bake, the ingredients you need to make it and the steps and time it will take to finish it. It’s your recipe to achieving your goals. So get cookin!
4. Seek to understand discomfort instead of running from it.
Once we moved to Spain I was very afraid, I haven’t seen that type of fear since I was on Project Runway!
Project Runway Season 9
Reflecting back now on journal entries from that time it’s silly what I was so afraid of. A big fear I experienced that felt very real at the time was, do I have what it takes to live in Spain. I didn’t feel I would ever drive, speak the language, get used to the scary bugs(still working on it), the property felt overwhelmingly daunting and my lack of sleep was playing into that fear.
If I would have made a decision based on our fears and anxiety we felt throughout the journey we would have never made the leap to come here, or reap the benefits from staying. It’s important to understand where that fear is coming from.
I learned a valuable tool once at the Serious business conference years ago from @heyamberrae https://www.amberrae.com
When you are having feelings of anxiety, stress, doubt, or whatever it might be, write a letter to it. Let your hand be guided by your heart and not by your brain.
Might sound something like;
Hello anxiety, what is it that you’re so nervous about. The bugs are massive and they’re going to eat me alive, the driving is scary because I don’t know where I’m going, or what if I get in an accident and I can’t speak the language. We don’t know anyone, we’re going to be so lonely, there’s so many slugs out here, everything we want to grow they’ll eat!
The mind is like a child going to school for the first time. Give it time to release all its fears and observe without judgement then calm it by disproving your doubts with facts.
Might look like;
The bugs are different here, remember moving to Denver from Vegas, there were a lot of crazy bugs and you lived there for 22 years. You know how to drive, luckily there’s not too many people here and you have navigation. You’re learning the language, and there’s google translate when you feel stuck. We will meet new people, we just have to put ourselves out there. We’ll plant things slugs like to eat so we can grow the things we want to eat.
Take the time to reflect and get to the bottom of why you’re feeling the emotion you’re feeling. Don’t take action until you do, it could lead you on a path away from accomplishing your goals.
Meditation is a great practice to help sharpen your tools to observe your thoughts and shift your perspective. I’ve used headspace fhttps://www.headspace.com for 7 years and have also used float tanks https://www.samanafloat.com for a deeper meditation. With practice, you’ll get better at becoming more intentional and less reactive.
Living outside of your comfort zone can be scary, it requires self discipline to shift your perspective and have the courage to lean into your fears. With a little practice, patience and determination you’ll get there.
