Mastering Yourself is a Painful, Paradoxical, Powerful & Heart-breaking Journey
How comfort zones conceal our true potential
Stepping out of your comfort zone is hard.
Really hard.
Locked into patterns like track marks in a country road, you are unknowingly in a rut; and though you somehow believe that you are moving forward, that there is some linear progress, you are actually going round and round in ever-increasingly diminishing circles.
If you want to make a difference in your life, in your team, in your professional life, then the range of behavior that you call normal has to be breached. You must understand that your concept of “good”, both personally and that held by your peer group, is like a bloody big mill stone around your leg.
In truth, the concept of “comfort zone” is misconstrued. It is actually a fear zone, the place where you hide as life travels you by. Inside this zone, through psychological tricks you play on yourself, you maintain your status quo, and dreams, aspirations, adventures, creativity, ambitions, are reduced to distant memories; left to tug at your consciousness when you are caught unaware.
Negative emotions wrapped around your ego, your sense of “I”, are actually your prison guards: fear, uncertainty, and doubt, control your inner and outer space, patrolling and keeping guard. They watch out for any signal that you may stray from your habitual path. Daring to think, or talk, or acting outside the rules at play, will lead to punishment. The level of self-blame, self-hatred, and lack of self-esteem, that we can layer on ourselves at times can seem limitless. I mean, how can you believe in yourself when no one else has believed in you? How can you raise yourself up when all the surrounding evidence is that you shouldn’t, that being special is the purview of others?
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