“Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor.” ~ Unknown
We like to pretend that the reason we aren’t creating our own opportunities is due to something outside ourselves. Strangely enough, the truth is that whether we are looking for opportunities that already exist or are creating our own, we spend the same amount of time, energy, and sometimes money on the story we made up which keeps us procrastinating and stuck in the same place over and over again. Sometimes it seems we’re sleepwalking through life and can’t seem to wake up and take control. We become stuck!
Do you make and pursue the career opportunities you want, or what seems most comfortable? Right now you are living the life of your own choosing.
So what tends to keep you stuck where you are? Why aren’t you creating those opportunities allowing you to live your dream? My guess is that there is something we are trained to honor more than our dreams.
The Comfort Zone
“If you don’t make something out of your own life, someone else will.” ~ Margaret Newell
The comfort zone is where we live when we continue to make the same decisions over and over—it makes us feel comfortable. To even contemplate a new action can make us feel afraid, so it should be no surprise that in choosing to do something new we may feel out of our element. When we feel uncomfortable enough, long enough, we tend to feel discouraged. So, regardless of whether they’re helpful, we return to our thoughts, feelings, and actions that are more familiar, more practiced, and more predictable—in other words, more comfortable.
“In the heating and air-conditioning trade the point on the thermostat in which neither heating nor cooling must operate—around 72 degrees—is called ‘The Comfort Zone.’ It is also known as ‘The Dead Zone.’” ~ Russell Bishop
Living in the comfort zone is dangerous and tricky for those of us with dreams because it is one of the places where we know ourselves intimately and where we become very good at fooling ourselves. We wouldn’t dare dream of using an excuse we could see through, or a reason we’d find unreasonable, or a rationale we’d find irrational. To justify staying in our comfort zone we take our greatest aspirations and find excuses for not bothering to aspire. We find someone or something outside ourselves to blame.
Am I pushing some buttons now? Is your comfort zone being threatened by the words I am saying? Here are some of the excuses we use to keep us in our comfort zone. “I would have, but…” “If only…” “I’ll try…” “Maybe…” “Should…” “Ought to…” “I’ll attempt.”
You know what I mean: the “should-have, could-have, would-have” syndrome. We’ve all used them. No one is perfect. So don’t allow your comfort zone to keep you stuck. Every time you hear yourself use one of these words, whether it is just in your head (you know—the Brat) or out loud, stop! Find a word that is related to the limiting word that the Brat or inner voice in your head uses—a word that makes you laugh and most importantly takes the emotional sting out of the equation—and replace that old limiting word with this new one. (Here’s where a good Thesaurus comes in handy.) When you rephrase your thought using this bold, less emotionally charged new word in place of the old limiting one, you start changing the programming in your mind which will give you a better chance of getting what you want out of life.
For example, instead of saying, “I’ll try it.” Say “I will experiment with it.” Also remember that Yoda, of Star Wars fame, said, “There is no trying; only doing.”
Expanding your comfort zone is work. It’s a choice and a process. It needs to be worked at all the time. It’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It’s about being willing to take a risk and learn from the outcome. We learn by doing. You can read about, or study something, forever. But until you take action and put it all on the line, it’s hearsay.
“A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body—the wishbone.” ~ Robert Frost
One of the primary reasons we don’t do new things is because we want to do them perfectly the first time. We learn from family, teachers, community—whomever—that simply reaching the goal is not good enough. We must do it the “right way”—or more aptly put, “their way”—in order for the goal to be properly attained. However, there is only one way to become perfect at something: experience, failure, feedback; experience, failure, feedback; experience, failure, feedback. There is no one right way.
Our mind controls the programming. The thinking mind is a beautiful thing, but only when it becomes a tool at our disposal. As John Kenneth Galbraith said, “In the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there’s no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.”
Do you want to be able to expand and pursue those career opportunities, or do you want to do only what’s comfortable? I understand that feeling uncomfortable is not a happy place to be, but is it a sufficient reason for not initiating those opportunities that will move you forward on your career path?
Stay tuned for Part II of this article where I will give you suggestions for getting beyond the limiting, negative emotional sensations you might feel as you get close to leaving your comfort zone—the ones that leave you feeling frustrated, discouraged, and finally exhausted.
“If you don’t know and understand yourself at the deepest level, there is no chance of being successful at anything.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
Let’s get you out of your comfort zone and onto the path of a successful singing career.
