Greetings friends of Steemit and Hindwhale Community
Going to school or a job where we do what is required of us to get by, but not necessarily more than that.
Getting quick dopamine fixes throughout the day on our phones or other devices. Spending weekends hanging out with the same people we've always socialized with. Holding on to the same beliefs we've had for years and failing to consider different opinions. Basically it means taking the path of least resistance.
Life becomes a predictable routine, with no real challenges and we find ourselves stagnating. And it's easy to understand why the majority of people stay here for most of their lives. As the name implies, it's comfortable here since we're not pushing ourselves.
At a glance, these seem to be nothing wrong with that. Why would we voluntarily put ourselves in a position of struggle, if we don't have to?
But if we only live our lives in the comfort zone, we might be unknowingly doing ourselves an injustice.
People who are stuck here for too long don't just stagnate, but they often regress backwards as well. When you're doing the same things, the same way, over and over, the comfort zone itself begins to shrink.
The things that you were comfortable with before, are now less comfortable.
Let me give you an example. Someone who is socially anxious, and is afraid of social interaction, usually doesn't like the idea of meeting new people.
Experiencing that is outside their comfort zone. So instead they prefer to spend their time alone, or if they do socialize, it's with people they already know well.
And that's fine. But let's say this person starts spending less time with their current friends, and even more time alone.
Slowly, their current comfort zone will become smaller. Because they don't confront their fear, the fear becomes even bigger. And even the idea of calling up their current friend group might become more difficult.
When a muscle isn't used for a longer period of time, it atrophies and gets smaller because there is no reason for it to stay big.
And that is the first reason why I try to do something difficult every day. I don't want to stagnate, and I don't want the things that I'm comfortable with now, become uncomfortable in the future.
However, when we push ourselves and do something that is a little more difficult or challenging for us, we leave the comfort zone.
Then we enter the growth zone. This is where we struggle and we might feel like incompetent fools, but this is exactly where all real progress is made.
To improve and see progress, you have to leave the comfort zone and increase the challenge.
Thank you for reading my post.
I would like to invite three fellow Steemians to participate in the contest.
@sabbirakib
@anjinoor
@chiagoziee