Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Are you stuck in your comfort zone?  Are you bored as hell in your life?  Do you wake up some mornings and wonder what this is all for?  Do you contemplate running away from home to some place more fun?  If so, you are probably stuck in your comfort zone.

I was there.  I think its a phenomenon with us humans sometimes (in my case it was a mom thing).  We have families to take care of, we don’t dare step out of our comfort zones, that would require our families to step out of their comfort zones.  And we can’t do that!  We are supposed to be there for our families!

I get it.  I am still here in my comfortable place ~ not as much as I was before my son turned 14 ~ but still more “comfortable” than I was in my 20’s when I figured ‘anything goes’ (almost).  I remember in 2009 I got asked to go to LA for an audition for a new “Medium” TV show.  I was firmly entrenched in my comfort zone of being mom (and wife, and with my work at home).  And that is exactly where I needed to be at that time.  I am NOT slagging motherhood or fatherhood.  I would not have felt comfortable leaving my family for any extended length of time, they DID need me in 2009.

However, now its different.  My family still needs me, but not as much as before.  It is time for me to stretch my wings a little bit.  I highly doubt I would move out of country and leave my family behind, but if I got invited to go away for a while, I probably could at this stage of our lives.

I refuse to let my ‘comfort zone’ become ‘the rest of my life’,  and you should too.  There are many of us moms and dads that give up so much of ourselves to raise our families ~ and that is good.  The problem occurs when our kids don’t need us so much anymore, and we stay where we have been for the last 18 (or more) years.

That’s sometimes why marriages break up after 20 years or so.  Because the comfort zone can be so boring.  We aren’t meant to be born, go to work, have a family, pay bills, be bored out of our minds and then die.  We are supposed to have a life in there somewhere!

In my case, it was raising a family that got me into my comfort zone ~ and it has been perfect!  That’s exactly what we all needed at the time.  For some of you, you are stuck in a comfort zone because of fear of judgement, or because you think you are different and can’t show your real self, or because you think you can’t afford something different for yourself.

You will never be able to live the life of your dreams from within your comfort zone.  Change is uncomfortable, different is uncomfortable, even wonderful, fantastic, exciting, exhilarating and new are uncomfortable.

What are you going to do to get out of your comfort zone?