How to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone: 3 Helpful Habits

Step out of your comfort zone“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
Brian Tracy

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
John Augustus Shedd

People often get stuck in mostly discussing or reading about making positive changes. Instead of spending that time and effort on actually making the changes they want in life.

Why?

One big reason in my experience is simply that it is uncomfortable to step outside of your own comfort zone.

So what can you do about it?

In this article I’d like to share three habits that have helped me to make it easier to step outside of my own comfort zone and to make real changes in my life.

1. Mix the small things up. Often.

This is an easy to do habit you can use every day if you like.

You can for example:

  • Try new music. Listen to music that you wouldn’t usually listen to or have never heard before on Spotify or a similar service.
  • Eat something new. We try to cook from at least one new recipe each week. It often makes for an interesting experience, a tasty treat for the taste buds and has helped us to find many, many new favorites in the past few years.
  • Read something your friends wouldn’t guess you would read. It can give you many new ideas and open your mind up to new perspectives.
  • Take another path home. Instead of taking the usual route home from work, school or a friend’s house take another path and see something new even if you are in transport mode.

Mixing things up in these small ways every day or several times a week will help you to change you perception of yourself from someone who likes to stick to the good old comfortable to someone who is curious and likes to try new things out and to step outside the comfort zone quite often.

And the very nice thing about that change is that it make it easier and makes it feel more natural to mix things up in other areas of life and to take steps outside of your comfort zone when it comes to bigger things than what to eat for dinner too.

2. Take small steps forward.

Making big changes can feel so scary that you start to procrastinate and so no action is taken towards what you want.

So instead, take just one small step forward. And if you come up with a small step but it still leads to procrastination then find an even smaller step and take action on that one.

If you want to get into better shape then focus on going out running or lifting weights for just 5 or 10 minutes a week at first.

If you want to improve your social skills then focus on just smiling and being kind towards one or a few people a day. Or simply have one small conversation a day where you are fully listening and focusing on the other person for a few minutes.

If you want to write and start selling your own e-book or course online but it seems daunting then do what I did. Take a smaller step and just create a very short e-book to give a way for free to new subscribers.

Take one small step after another to make the uncomfortable feelings manageable so you can keep moving forward and towards what you want out of life.

3. Bring a friend along.

A friend to keep you accountable to stick with it and to keep going outside of your comfort zone is a great way to make it more likely that the change you want to make will last.

So if you are going to a party where you know few people then it may be easier to bring a friend. Otherwise it may feel so uncomfortable to go that you skip it and spend your evening doing something else.

If you have decided to start going to the gym it is often easier to actually get going and to keep going there every week if you have a gym-partner that will give you a nudge forward on the days when you feel like just staying on the couch and watching TV.

And in my experience, having a friend that also wants to start eating healthier can make it a lot easier to stick with it until the new habit becomes the new normal for you.

Image by Graham (license).

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Yes It is a trap. I had to learn that the hard way. Lol. People get so comfortable with their jobs, goals, and living situation, its amazing. I really like this blog so far though. very inspiring.

  • I’ve been sitting in bed for ten years and thinking of doing something different sounded good. What’s there to do though.

  • Thanks for the tips!

    Taking action is everything, even when those steps seem small. I really like Tony Robbins’s description of real decision and action. “A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”

  • Yes, I agree your approach on beginning easy and slow…and also about working out with a friend. When I began going to the gym, I did so with my brother…much more secure way to begin. 25 years later I still have the routine and it’s the best thing I ever did for myself. Nice post…thanks.
    Bill

  • Mpho

    Carefully put and very welcoming, one is now prone to try out new things .Its very interesting! leaving my comfort shell
    thanks.

  • Great article and great tips, Henrik! I would never had considered that trying new foods or music would be stepping out of my comfort zone, but I suppose it is! I find as well that becoming more in-tuned with yourself, in turn creating a greater sense of confidence, can also be a great step towards feeling more comfortable stepping out of your comfort zone.

  • Marc Foster

    Thank you for this thoughtful post.
    My partner and I are separated and she lives 3 1/2 hrs away and I have been trying to relocate to be closer so as to see my children and to work on our relationship.
    Being unable to break free of my comfort zone has left me bewildered in hesitation and procrastination and now she has moved on and since November, I have been suffering from extreme depression and struggling to face the reality of my situation.
    I’m not sure why I’m writing all this but it can’t hurt…I haven’t commented on any blogs for a long time and I guess I just wanted to say thanks for bring thoughtful.

  • Lynne

    Great post and very helpful tips! I love the first quote by Brian Tracy.
    Although it’s very hard for a lot of people to step out of their comfort zone, starting small can help. For example, like you said, trying new music or even trying something new to eat. I think that would help many people, including myself, learn to develop a curiosity for new and exciting things, and could push one to step out of his/her comfort zone more often throughout his/her life. Amazing blog to read. Thank you!