Good Wednesday morning everyone.Today we cover part 3 of breaking out of our comfort zone. Outside your comfort zone can be a good place to be,as long as you don’t tip the scales too far. It’s important to remember there’s a difference between the kind of controlled anxiety we’re talking about and the very real anxiety that many people struggle with every day. Everyone’s comfort zone is different, and what may expand your horizons may paralyze someone else. Remember, optimal anxiety can bring out your best, but too much is a bad thing.
Here are some ways to break out your comfort zone without going too far:
- Do everyday things differently. Rethink your your pitch or sales approach. Try a new restaurant without checking Yelp first. dare I say it, go vegetarian for a week, or a month. Try a new operating system. Recalibrate your reality. Whether the change you make is large or small, make a change in the way you do things on a day-to-day basis. Look for the perspective that comes from any change, even if it’s negative. Don’t be put off if things don’t work out the way you planned. Learn from the changes.
- Take your time making decisions. Sometimes slowing down is all it takes to make you uncomfortable-especially if speed and quick thinking are prized in your work or personal life. Slow down, observe what’s going on, take your time to interpret what you see, and then intervene. Sometimes just defending your right to make an educated decision can push you out of your comfort zone. Think and process, don’t just react.
- Trust yourself and make snap decisions. Now we’re contradicting ourselves, but there’s a good reason. Just as there are people who thrive on snap decisions, others are more comfortable weighing all of the possible options several times, over and over again. Sometimes making a snap call is in order, just to get things moving. Doing so can help you kick start your personal projects and teach you to trust your judgment. It’ll also show you there’s fallout to quick decisions as well as slow ones.
- Do it in small steps. It takes a lot of courage to break out of your comfort zone. You get the same benefits whether you go in with both feet as you do if you start slow, so don’t be afraid to start slow. If you’re socially anxious, don’t assume you have to muster the courage to ask your crush on a date right away, just say hello to them and see where you can go from there. Identify your fears, and then face them step by step.
There are lots of other ways to stretch your personal boundaries. You could learn a new language or skill. Learning a new language has multiple benefits in sales, many of which extend to learning any new skill or working with a new demographic.
Connect with people that inspire and support you, or volunteer with an organization that does great work. Travel, whether you go around the block or across the globe. If you’ve lived your whole life seeing the world from your front door, you’re missing out.
Visiting new and different places is perhaps one of the best ways to really broaden your perspectives, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult to do. The experiences you have may be mind-blowing or regrettable, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re doing it, and you’re pushing yourself past the mental blocks that tell you to do nothing.
Trying new things is difficult. If it weren’t, breaking out of your comfort zone would be easy and we’d do it all the time. It’s just as important to understand how habits form and how we can break them as it is to press yourself out of your comfort zone by doing specific things.
Remember: Master the Habit Loop to Break Bad Habits and Build Better Ones, Master the Habit Loop to Break Bad Habits and Build Better Ones, You can see where this is going.
There are plenty of tools to help you build better habits, but in many ways it really comes down to creating new habits. Last and final point, Practicing using or trying a new habit for 2 weeks and you can create a new habit, or quit one as well.
Tomorrow we will look at Part 4 Take It Slow, and Make Stretching Your Boundaries a Habit of Its Own.
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.
Happy Selling,
David
“You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset”
Tom Hopkins
Payment Lynx Daily 