Comfort Zone vs Growth Zone: Your Career Growth Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone
Your career growth begins at the end of your comfort zone. Which is why it’s so important to know the difference between your comfort zone vs. growth zone and how to move just beyond what is comfortable. Staying in your comfort zone isn't wrong, but it isn't where you will grow your career, either.
When you find your career feeling stagnant, it is time to cross that barrier and challenge your feeling of safety. Otherwise, you will end up repeating yourself. And, let's face it, repetition is boring.
Comfort Zone,Growth Zone Defined
If you’re reading this blog you may have been doing what you do for a long time. You’ve had success and are now feeling accomplished… and maybe a bit bored or restless.
Your Professional Comfort Zone
Your professional comfort zone is not a terrible place to be. Staying comfortable is safe, and there’s a time for it. You’re in a place where you know you can succeed, you have a proven track record, and you know what it feels like to run the day to day of your current position.
But it’s not exciting and can sometimes lead to a lack of fulfillment in your job. If you find you lack that jump out of bed feeling on Monday mornings, it may be a sign that you are way too comfortable in your position.
Understanding Your Professional Growth Zone
Your professional growth zone is just on the other side of feeling comfortable. You’ve got to cross the comfort zone barrier in order to grow. I like to describe the feeling of professional growth as one that is a slight reach. This doesn’t mean that you have to place yourself in positions where you’re so uncomfortable you get hives, it just means you should seek opportunities that feel a little different or outside of what you would normally choose. This slight stretch into the unknown will build up your discomfort tolerance and accustom you to bigger and bigger choices/challenges.
Why There Is No Growth in the Comfort Zone
When do you want to stay safe, and when is it time to push?
As I’ve mentioned, the comfort zone is not a bad thing. I’m not asking you to choose one or the other, but as a high functioning professional, you will need to spend a fair amount of time out of your comfort zone in order to experience growth.
Back in my corporate days, there came a point where I started to feel like I was just going through the motions. Every day at the office took on a little of that groundhog day feel. So I really reflected on what I needed to do because leaving my current position wasn’t a good option. I wanted to recover my TGIM feeling every week.
In order to shake up the doldrums, I decided to do one thing every day that made me feel uncomfortable. I literally wrote the question, “What have you done today to get uncomfortable?” as a task in my daily to do list.
This shift to seeking out the uncomfortable moment, whether it was reaching out to a new colleague or trying a new leadership strategy with my team, got me to notice new things about my position. It changed my attitude from one of quiet acceptance to a Bring it On attitude at work. And that made all the difference.
Why is it good to be uncomfortable?
The first thing to understand is that in the modern world, this feeling of discomfort is one that no longer serves us. Back in our caveman days, we needed discomfort in order to survive. Our discomfort would trigger our fight/flight/freeze response and that would literally save us from the grizzly bear.
But in modern times, our nervous system doesn’t know the difference. In the corporate world we are no longer running from lions but our brains don’t know the difference. The brain can’t distinguish between the mild discomfort of asking a question or reaching out to someone on LinkedIn that you don’t know and literal survival.
When you find yourself in a situation where you feel a little uncomfortable and may want to run screaming from the room, instead, pause a minute. Assess what is actually making you uncomfortable. If your life isn’t in danger, consider leaning into the situation and taking on the problem or new circumstance. It’s important to give yourself permission to be human and relax into your growth mindset.
The Goldilocks Zone: Your Most Productive Zone
The Goldilocks Zone refers to that magical place where you are just far enough outside of your comfort zone to learn, but not so far that you become paralyzed with fear. And just like the three bears, each person has to assess where their Goldilocks' Zone lives.
It’s important not to think about the Goldilocks Zone as being binary. It is neither where you feel completely safe nor entirely uncomfortable. The most productive you will be is when you are in a happy medium. This allows you to move forward but in a way that feels supportive at the same time. You need a little tension in order to grow. Just like when you go to the gym, you slowly add weight to your morning routine. You want to maintain that tension and stay right on the edge of comfort so that you can grow in your career.
What can you do to make sure you are in the right place for career growth
Once a year, it’s good to take some time to assess whether your career is moving forward. Your career growth isn’t always an upward movement or new position. Often, career growth looks like improving a skill set or expanding your network.
In my own business, I like to change things up every year by selecting a task which will set me outside my comfort zone. I choose to do new things for my growth and learning to keep engaged and be interested in my work.
This year I’ve signed up for a program which will teach me how to write a keynote speech. This makes me completely uncomfortable - which is also the main reason why I am doing it. When I think of myself standing on a stage, in front of hundreds of people delivering a speech, I feel way out of my comfort zone. I am intentionally going into this program knowing that it will make me uncomfortable. I am seeking out discomfort so that I will be in a growth zone mindset.
How to Overcome Your Comfort Zone & Embrace a Growth Zone
It’s all well and good to talk about leaving the comfort zone for your growth zone, but how do you make that happen? As a career-life coach, I have several techniques that I recommend you implement in order to grow outside your comfort zone.
Reframe your relationship with the stress/discomfort
Feeling uncomfortable can provide motivation, and you can use that motivation to move forward. By reframing your relationship to that discomfort as something that you may need for your growth, you are allowing it to become a powerful asset. Move towards the thing that makes you feel off kilter and embrace that energy. Continuing to progress will boost your confidence and show you how to overcome your comfort zone.
2. Take small steps
You don’t have to take a huge leap off a cliff to determine where you want to go. You’ll go farther, faster by identifying the small steps that you need to take. Every little step you accomplish moves you that much closer to your big goal. Without even knowing it, you will be in your growth zone, growing in a way that feels supportive and not overwhelming. The great thing about small steps is that if you try it and it works, you keep going. If you try it and it doesn’t work, you can take a step back and reassess.
3. Celebrate your wins
It’s important to recognize when you are making progress towards where you want to go and that you give yourself credit for having done that hard thing. When you really consider your success and feel what that success is like, it will help you to see what it was that enabled you to succeed. Success leaves clues. Use these clues as your blueprint to move further into your growth zone.
You can move from your comfort zone to growth zone. As you get better at growing and more practiced at overcoming your fear, this transition will become easier for you. You will lead a much more fulfilling career and happier life when you practice getting uncomfortable in order to grow. So do the hard thing. Step into your growth zone.
Common Questions About Career Growth Opportunities
Why is it important to step out of your comfort zone at work?
My clients are the high achievers of the business world. And you all are not timid individuals. But when you have reached your goals, it’s easy to fall into the trap of a comfort zone. It’s at this point that your career fulfillment can rely on you practicing how to grow outside your comfort zone. Constantly exercising a growth zone mindset will lead to more fulfillment and will reinvigorate your position at work.
Why do some people stay in their comfort zone?
There are many reasons why someone would choose to stay in their comfort zone at work. Perhaps they have a lot going on in their home life and use work as their stability, or maybe they have reached their goals and don’t know what else they can do. Even if you have a good reason for remaining in your comfort zone, I encourage you to consider some small ways to exercise growth. Your growth zone is where you will find the most fulfillment in life and if you stay in comfort for too long, you may get bored.
How do I know when I’ve gotten too comfortable?
This is a very personal question and one that honestly, there is no wrong answer to. The best thing to do if you wonder if you’ve gotten a little too comfortable in your position at work is to ask yourself the following question, “What have you done that’s made you uncomfortable lately?”
Sometimes it’s most beneficial to talk this question through with someone else. A trusted mentor, colleague or advisor can be very helpful. This is also where working with a career-life coach, like myself, can help you identify your strengths and encourage you to move into your growth zone.
If you are asking yourself this question, you probably do feel some stagnation in your career and it’s time to get a little uncomfortable.
I’ve intentionally pushed out of my comfort zone and now I feel like I’m out over my skis. What do I do?
This is a hard question because when you are in the middle of feeling overwhelmed, you have lost the thread. You don’t know if you’re on the right track or even if you are moving towards the right goal.
The first thing to do is to fix the urgent problem. If you really are about to fall off of a cliff, it’s time to stop moving forward for a moment and fix the issue at hand. Once you feel you have things back under control, it’s time to reassess what you were going after. What is your relationship with the goal you set for yourself? Did you really take on something reckless, or is it just that things went awry and you needed to fix them?
Whether you continue towards your goal does not indicate whether you are in your growth zone or not. You have grown simply by trying something new, realizing that it wasn’t working, and fixing the problem. So much growth happens in self-reflection and problem solving.
How do I create an environment of growth for my team as a leader without risking the success of my business?
First, look at your team realistically. What are their strengths and capabilities? Do you have the right people in the right place? Are you setting the right goals or are you as a leader, pushing them a little?
The next thing to note is if you have set up the right environment for growth. In order to grow, your team needs to understand that things don’t have to be perfect in order to move forward. If you’re setting an environment where things have to be perfect, it’s not okay for your team to take a risk.
The best way to build a growth environment in your business is starting the conversation around growth. Invite your team to share their ideas about what you, as a business, can do for growth.
