Grow beyond your comfort zone
With a New Year just around the corner, many of you are forming plans for what you hope to achieve, and who you hope to become in the future. It’s important that before you finalize those plans, you have spent some time in reflection on this year’s accomplishments.
You will want to ask yourself these questions first. How have you have grown this year as a person and what did you contribute to the world? And lastly, did you bring your previous year’s plans to fruition or are you still the same person who had big dreams last December?
If you succeeded in your aims this year, then I am positive you know the amount of effort it will take to repeat it. If not, it’s time for you to move from your comfort zone because it’s not serving you. Make some scary changes, or just one, if more seems too overwhelming.
Here are some reasons to change:
1. Growth takes change
Change is necessary for growth, in fact, growth is impossible without change! You can choose to stay safely in your familiar comfort zone, but if you do, you’ll be missing out on all life has to offer.
The challenge of a new job or moving to a different city might be uncomfortable, especially at first. But it’s guaranteed that change is likely to lead you down all sorts of unexpected paths, with rewards you could never have imagined, just waiting for you. Wouldn’t you rather be a butterfly than remain a caterpillar?
“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”
2. Flexibility aids resilience
Change forces you to become more flexible. Faced with large unexpected changes, you learn to adapt and move with the flow. And once you’ve learned to roll with whatever the circumstances are, you begin to see the positives and rise to the challenges. Even something as negative as losing your job can open you up to new prospects and exciting opportunities, such as changing industries, furthering your education, or starting your own business.
3. Focusing on your values creates change
There’s nothing quite like change either good or bad to make you focus on what’s genuinely important in your life. Negative changes like illness, divorce, or business reverses can help you recognize the importance of relationships, with family, and friends. Having to make tough decisions can sharpen your focus on what your ethical framework is, what you will and won’t stand for in your life.
4. Small steps can accomplish big things
Not all changes are big or life-changing. Small incremental steps, made over time to your habits and routines, can add up to huge changes in the future. You might start getting off the bus one stop early and after a few months find yourself walking to the office every day.
Making small changes often has a snowball effect and before you know it you have accomplished that big, seemingly impossible task.
5. Confident as you meet life’s challenges
You might be surprised to discover how strong you are. Your confidence will increase as you deal with life’s challenges and you’ll quickly learn what you can handle and what you can’t.
And as a bonus, change can make you a more compassionate and kinder person and give you more insight into other people’s circumstances and choices.
Learn to see change as an opportunity, not a threat, and you will live a much more fulfilled and exciting life.
I hope you find this post valuable and share it with your family and friends.
For further reading check out this post from a year ago.