Breaking out of the comfort zone is the only way you’ll ever find life.
Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to keep going that counts. Anonymous.
The other day I saw a picture of an ocean from an airplane view. The way it laid out the layers of the ocean drew me in. First is the sandy beach, then onto shallow, muddy water, then to the white foaming waves, and then on to the clear blue depths. The simple picture made me think of the comfort zone of life, and the process of exiting it.
You see, the sandy beach is your comfort zone. The realm of belonging you can be sure of and accomplishments you know you can complete. But when you decide to pursue a new goal, you get into the muddy water. What should be a crystal clear blue is actually brown muck because it is still mixed with the shore- your old habits, patterns of thinking, and convictions.
Despite this, you can just picture the clear blue of an endless sea. The dream of a new reality, so you keep pushing and while the water is brown, at least it is water. At least you’ve left the shore. But this isn’t where most people give up. Most people make it into the muddy brown mix of life and death- water and shore, but never beyond. Because the next step is not a steady progression into the deep sea. The next step is the white, foamy waves crashing over your body with a force strong enough, in some oceans, to knock you off your feet. Here you flip and snort and cough and spit, and many people give up. Here are the failures, setbacks, and circumstances that come with trying new things. Many people let bitterness take root and decide that this is what the whole ocean is like. They decide the deep blue sea dream was only that – a dream. The problem is if they can just get past those waves, and a little farther, they’ll stop noticing the brown muck. Even the sea herself will draw them in with currents. At this point a habit becomes a lifestyle and this person has not only exited the comfort zone, but taken ground in life. A whole ocean of possibilities is now open before them.
The cool thing about life is it never stops giving you opportunities to break from your comfort zone, but you have the responsibility of finding joy in the journey. What do I mean by joy in the journey?
Well, it’s the mind game. When I first started boxing, I was eighteen and had put up with myself long enough to know my patterns of inconsistency, laziness, and impatience. In short, I had a tendency to quit. Why? I hate the journey. I want results. I want the security of knowing what I am doing is worth it. That I am good enough. That other people respect me. These things I crave so deep that only humility and passion could keep me from giving up. So everyday I asked myself, why am I here? Why do I come to train at boxing even though I’m weak, out-of-shape, and practically last in the class in everything we do? Then I’d say, because I love it.
This mindset did not take away the shame I felt about the way I was behind the other people in the class, or kill the craving for recognition that burned inside of me. To understand how hard maintaining this mindset was for me, you got to know that I am a people pleaser. I don’t just want to be noticed, I want people to take me under their wing and coach me. Probably the worst punishment you could give me is to ignore me, and in this gym I had to accept that I was to be ignored. Not only that I would be ignored, but that the responsibility of finding joy in the journey was mine alone. Would I ask myself if that was a good work-out or tell myself it was? Even on the days I only put in fifty percent, I had to decide what I would call myself: A failure or a student. Someone who didn’t have enough to do it right or someone learning and trying a new thing. It was all in the name calling.
You see, people often see those waves that flip them about as circumstance or failures. They’re not. They are your thoughts. Your reaction to failure, not the failure itself. Failure is proof that you are out of your comfort zone and trying to grow. That’s all. If you are consistent, then the little mistakes do not matter. The bumps in the road do not matter. Learning to be consistent will not only get you to your destination, but grow integrity, discipline, and grit within you. Why do these things matter beyond the fact that they’re “nice character traits”? Well, a person who has these things can find joy in the journey and that makes them fall in love with life.
- A. Faith.
