The Science of Your “Comfort Zone, and Why It’s So Hard to Leave It Pt 1

Good Monday morning everyone. Are you stuck in your comfort zone?

I’ve been working on this series of posts for some time now. To get better results and growth we have to step out of our
comfort zone. If you are not particularly skilled at a particular activity, you will be stuck in a comfort zone and feel uncomfortable at the very thought of stepping out of it.Failing to overcome a lack of self-confidence and failing to believe in yourself will prevent you from achieving the kind of success you dream about as a merchant services sales professionals.

If you are not good on the telephone, you will avoid the telephone as much as possible. If you are not good at prospecting, you will avoid prospecting as much as possible. If you are not good at confirming the sale and closing the deal, you will choke up at the end of the sales presentation and avoid asking for any commitment from the prospect. In every case, your income and your sales will suffer until you decide to step out of your comfort zone and start to believe in yourself.

It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in obvious ways: regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress.

The idea of the comfort zone goes back to a classic experiment in psychology. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson explained that a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety-a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal.

This space is called “Optimal Anxiety,” and it’s just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we’re too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.

The idea of optimal anxiety isn’t anything new. Anyone who’s ever pushed themselves to get to the next level or accomplish something knows that when you really challenge yourself, you can turn up amazing results. More than a few studies support this point. However, pushing too hard can actually cause a negative result, and reinforce the idea that challenging yourself is a bad idea.

It’s our natural tendency to return to an anxiety neutral, comfortable state.

You can understand why it’s so hard to kick your brain out of your comfort zone.

Even so, your comfort zone is neither a good or bad thing. It’s a natural state that most people trend towards. Leaving it means increased risk and anxiety, which can have positive and negative results (which we’ll get to in tomorrow’s blog), but don’t demonize your comfort zone as something holding you back. We all need that head-space where we’re least anxious and stressed so we can process the benefits we get when we leave it.

For more information about joining Payment Lynx and growing your portfolio or to discuss keeping momentum going in July please feel free to contact me at DMatney@PaymentLynx.com or 833-729-5969 ext. 2  to discuss partnering with Payment Lynx.

Tomorrow we will dig a bit deeper and discuss part 2

 “What You Get When You Break Free and Try New Things”