Need to expand your comfort zone?

One of our biggest ongoing challenges is to keep feeling that Comfort Zone and continue to push it outwards and be ever expanding.

Here is something to try, even if you’ve experienced this before try it again now:

-Fold your arms.

-Look down very carefully noticing how you have done it, what hand goes where?
-Is the left hand on top or bottom, where is the right hand?

Now, fold your arms the opposite way, be very careful that you have actually done it the complete opposite way, it’s all too easy to spin the arms a few times and fall back into the usual old way – the comfortable way.

If you have done this totally opposite to how you normally do it then more than likely it feels really awkward, and does not feel right at all. The reason is you are not familiar with this pattern of folding your arms, if you did this for a few days it would feel comfortable and natural, but because it is not something you usually do, it feels awkward until your brain detects the pattern and you get use to it.

Once we get use to things they become natural to us and don’t have that awkward feeling about them. This “awkward” feeling is a signal to “be aware” that this is something different, something we are not use to. It does not have to be a signal to “beware” and retreat

You see the most basic activities in life have patterns we become familiar with and even simple things in an unfamiliar way generate an awkward feeling.

Here is another one, when getting dressed next, put the other foot to the usual one in your trousers or underwear first, you will probably fall over! You see we are all over the place when something is not natural to us, when we are not an expert at something, even something simple. Does that mean you can never do it? Of course not. It means by paying attention, and practise you can develop a new pattern that those areas of life that were once uncomfortable can become natural. After all how does an expert become an expert – by doing something lots of times and continual improvement, doing more of what works and less of what does not work. You don’t need to have a lot of limiting beliefs to hold you back, quite simply not being use to doing something can cause emotional feedback, it’s feedback not a stop sign! So relax, pay attention and push forward!