EP. 158 - How to Leave Your Comfort Zone | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 158 today, and we're diving into the topic of leaving your comfort zone and the power of progress. Now, this has actually been one of, I guess, a really relevant topic to myself personally over the last couple of weeks, and especially as I've been getting back into my running groove and I'm going to be kicking off my training for my 50K ultra marathon soon. This is number three, to be honest, and in doing so, I think we need to understand that when we strive for long-term growth, the only way is through continuous daily inputs for the delay gratification right, and in doing so, we need to look at it from a different perspective, and I think we need to be looking at it from these two points which this is all my personal opinion, but I think it's super relevant of how I'm kind of looking at it, because I think you'll find some fresh perspective and, hopefully, some new insights for yourself, and these two points are are we growing our comfort zones? We currently, whenever we do something, we position ourselves into this bubble of comfort zone. The question I want to ask you is do you grow that comfort zone? And the second point is have you seen the compounding results of progress? And that's really what we're going to be diving into today. And I guess there'll be two parts of this conversation. One is how can we leave our comfort zones, and then two, what progress can look like when we actually zoom out and spend the time to have a sticky beak at it. So that's what we're getting into today. Let's roll the intro. So, when talking about comfort zones, there are a number of different ways that I guess we can work on growing our comfort zones or how we can leave our current comfort zones, and I've gone ahead and pulled a number of different, I guess, points around these, maybe I guess characteristics or parameters or areas that you could potentially help grow your comfort zone, and all of these might not be relevant for you, but maybe there's one or two here that will really stick out to you and make you think, hey, I could try that to grow my comfort zone. So that's really what the intention is here.

Speaker 1: 2:15

And number one is fresh perspectives. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, this is already a fresh perspective. It's my opinion or it's my understanding or my experience, but it is. It could potentially be a fresh perspective for you, and that's the whole, I guess, objective of having fresh perspective is it's going to expose you to something new, something different, something fresh, whether it's cultures, whether it's ideas or environments or experiences. And by doing this, by putting ourselves in a position where we are getting a fresh perspective, we can actually, I guess, spark a new level of creativity, broaden our horizons of understanding, but also help us see goals from a new perspective, from new angles. And that's why I love having these conversations with you, and everyone else is listening or watching, whether you're here on the YouTube. If you are, drop a comment and say hi, and that's what it's all about. Right, and I can give you my experience, my journey, my perspective. It's going to be different to yours, just like if you were sharing to me. It's going to be a fresh perspective because I haven't walked your shoes, I haven't lived your life. So I think that's probably the first one, and I think it's the most obvious one is seek that diversity of understanding and, whether it's through cultures, whether it's through ideas, whether it's through inspiration, find it and see what it can open your eyes to.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Number two is personal growth. This is similar to the fresh perspectives understanding, but when we leave our comfort zones it forces us to adapt and it forces us to grow. So we have to learn to navigate an unfamiliar territory and by doing so we learn how to overcome challenges, we learn to become more resilient, and we then have to also figure out how to make this just a consistency in our life. And it also helps experience, sorry, I guess these experiences then help shape us into a stronger or more capable self, and that's why I love running so much is because every time you get out there, you do, you make a little bit of progress, you become a little bit stronger, you learn a little bit more about yourself, and over time it compounds, which we're going to talk about a little bit later.

Speaker 1: 4:21

The next one is then expanded networks. As we said about the fresh perspectives, we change our environment. It often means that we're introducing ourselves to new people, which is the new perspectives, and we build those new valuable connections. But I think when we hone down on networks individually as people, your network can open up doors and opportunities that you never knew existed the amount of opportunities that I've had from people that are in my running community that's helped me with my business, versus people that are in the Pokemon community that's helped me with my business, or vice versa. Even now, how I volunteer at Backpack for Vic Kids, how all those interconnections have come to be and how they've come to play out blows my mind. Even my experience in my previous nine to five job, how that's now worked out in my favor today in my what I do for a living. Now, that network is important, so continue to expand it.

Speaker 1: 5:13

The next one is eliminating stagnation. Now this one is. I like to think about it as let's not get complacent. When we stay in the same place for too long and do the same things for too long, it can lead to stale, being stagnant and not making a progress. Now I'm not here to say that you need to be go, go, go, go go and you always have to be hustling and going hard. That's not, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is change can eject vitality into your life and it can brighten things up. It can open things up, it can give new life to your life by welcoming change and embracing change.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Yes, usually change means that there's going to have to be a level of discomfort, but that's what we're talking about is getting out of our comfort zones. But when we do that, it can be motivating, because it's going to make you want to take action and pursue your goals in a renewed way. So, if we can find ways to eliminate being just the same because if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten it's one of those famous quotes, right, and I think it was from oh my gosh, I apologize, I think it was the guy that did Ford, the original Ford Motors, but yeah, it might not have been either. The point is, if you do want the change, if you do want to see some growth, if you do want to see yourself becoming a better version of yourself, well, understand where you're being complacent, understand where you're just being, you know, neglecting, where you're not really putting any effort into, and that's where you probably need to start to adjust and make I guess, make changes to.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Next one is overcoming fear. Fear of the unknown, I guess, can be really paralyzing. We can spend so much time in our heads getting stuck on oh, what about this, what about that? Oh, if I do this, oh, maybe it won't work out and it becomes a big problem for us to be able to grow. But when we confront our fears or when we take the opportunity to really just pull back the curtain and see what's behind there and welcome the changing of our environments, it can lead to this newfound courage and confidence like we've been talking about, and it opens up this opportunity.

Speaker 1: 7:17

And I think I spoke about it in the last episode episode 157, where I've started to take this perspective of me building my business as if it's like a video game. Because when we play video games for me personally, I play RuneScape, old school RuneScape and there's a lot of skill acquisition and it meaning you have to acquire experience to be able to do something bigger and better and easier. And that's exactly like life as we do something, the more reps we put in, the easier it becomes, because we bank the knowledge, we bank the experience. Therefore, we can go out and do it and for me, there's a lot of fear moments where, like doing a quest or doing a hard boss or doing something which is like ah, maybe I'm going to have to risk my money, like my GP, my gold pieces on the game, but it's just like that in life.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Sometimes we do need to step out of our comfort zones, put a little bit of skin in the game and see if we can get ourselves to a new level of courage and a new level of confidence. The next one is embracing opportunities, which I kind of think summarizes all these points that we've just been talking about, because when we embrace opportunities, we get unique opportunities right. And whether it's a job offer, whether it's a new you know job offer in a new city or a new place or location, or a new role, maybe it's a chance to pursue a passion or I don't know, look, there could be a number of different things, and I'm not trying to relate this purely back to business or anything like that. Maybe it's an opportunity to go run someone, maybe someone's going to give you a sponsorship on something. Maybe someone's asked if you want to attend an event. Maybe someone wants to ask if you want to public speak somewhere. Who knows?

Speaker 1: 8:48

But change often comes hand in hand with exciting prospects. A lot of the time we don't realize how the change is going to be beneficial, because it confronts us. It comes in like oh, we're going to have to adjust, we're going to have to do something different. But when we actually weigh it out and play it out, we can start to see that maybe it ain't all that bad, maybe it isn't the end of the world, right, but that comes over experience and comes with hindsight.

Speaker 1: 9:15

The next one is redefining success, and this is the last point of this area, of this section of the podcast. But sometimes the definition of success changes as we evolve, and that's okay. As you do things, as you grow, as you build a family, as you earn more money, as you grow in your career, as you take on new hobbies or passions, whatever it may be, your idea, understanding and priority of success will change. Simple as that, and sometimes it needs to change as well. We get to define it. We shouldn't let other people define that success for you, but a new environment can help us discover what truly matters to you, and it can help you then align your goals accordingly. It's like the opposite of this, where, when something life-threatening or life-changing occurs, all of a sudden we really understand what truly matters. Let's not wait till that time comes, and God forbid that it does touch wood. We should be able to make these realizations ourselves without having to have the pressures of those moments in our life, but unfortunately, that's what happens Now. That is essentially how we can grow outside of our comfort zones.

Speaker 1: 10:20

There is one more thing, though, that I wanted to kind of mention, and it is this little U-Beauty. It's just a little productivity shot called Magic Mind. Now, I've been using this for about 21 days now, and Magic Mind, for me, is all about mental performance enhancement, and that's exactly what it is. It's a shot designed purely for productivity and focus, and when I mean a shot, it is because it's literally like you can see if you're watching here on screen it's very small, it's nimble and it is literally just a mouthful, not even maybe a little bit more, and the whole purpose of Magic Mind is it is scientifically formulated to increase our energy, to increase and enhance our focus, and also to create a sense of calm alertness.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Now, for me, it has become an essential part of my morning routine. If you're new here or if you haven't been playing along for a long time, I am a morning routine junkie. I love to have my mornings where I can just get the most important piece of my work done for the day, which is doing my eBay listings. Now, I get up at 5.06 every morning and I've been having this little bad boy and it just gets me moving and grooving instantly right and look. It's not about trying to hype it up or buzzwords, but it really does. It makes me feel awake, it makes me feel ready to concentrate and ready to get the job done, so it's become really important for me for my daily tasks. Now, for me, as I said, I have been using it for about 21 days now, and in the first 10 days, that's really when I started to see the compounding effects and that's really when I started to see the compounding effects. And that's the purpose of it is the more you use it, the more you just have it daily, on a regular basis. You will noticeably start to see or feel the differences in terms of well, for me personally, I can only speak on what I've been feeling, but it's been about maintaining that flow state and I feel like my body reacts to it quicker and more effectively or more efficiently.

Speaker 1: 12:06

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Speaker 1: 13:20

Now, the next point that I wanted to talk about in this episode was what progress can look like when we do zoom out or when we take it from a different perspective. The first thing I will say is that progress is progress. Sometimes we don't know what that means, and this is what I've been dealing with personally. While getting back into running, I had a big flat over the last. Well, since the start of the year, I had some heart scare issues. Last year I had coronavirus again and all those different things which really took a dint in my running. But progress is this it's showing up, it's putting in the reps, it's giving it a go, it's doing it when we don't feel like it, it's pushing through and it's also when we give ourselves permission to do so. I like that.

Speaker 1: 14:04

However, what I have found with progress is the best thing we can do is implement something of consistency via schedule or routine, and something which will enable us to essentially do things to occur as long as we show up and execute. And what I mean by that is for me, I like to make sure that I have my days that I run, I have my time that I run and these are the times that I allocate for it. So I have a framework in terms of these are the days I'm going to run, and then it's about making sure that I have what I need to do for those days, and that way I have kind of like a path to follow. I have an idea of where I need to be going, what I need to be doing, and I just got to show up and actually just do it, and really what it means is making these things a little bit easier for you to be able to open the door and to go out and grow. Now, the other thing that we need to take into account and I just said it is about opening the door to growth. But when we do do these things, when we do show up on a regular basis and be consistent and allow ourselves to have this opportunity, it opens the door for growth and adaption. And what I mean by adaption is, as we grow, as you push your comfort zone bigger, you start to adapt to that bigger comfort zone. And all of a sudden, what used to be this big, which is I'm just holding up, like you know, maybe a small circle, like a 20 cent coin all of a sudden it can be a 50 cent coin and all of a sudden then it can be bigger and bigger and bigger, and then it becomes the size of a gym ball, right as your bubble like, as a representation. And as we do more of the same, we grow into this adoption model of things a little bit easier. However, I do want to make sure we clearly understand that, as we do this, there will be this sense or segment of grind mentality, which what I mean by this is as we try to consistently make a change or make a difference or to grow or to level up.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Things might not always go as planned, days will suck, things won't go as planned, it all seems too hard or feels pointless or we don't see a tangible result, but the reality is, even though those things are occurring, you will feel crap. It won't be like it's a win. You're still actually making the progress, because what happens is then out of nowhere. All of a sudden, it works, things happen, it went okay, you feel good, it was easier than last time, and that is when you have an outlier day or a better day, or things worked out to be a little bit smoother or things just made sense right. And these are the moments which we need to bank, these are the moments that we need to take and leverage, because all of a sudden, now your comfort zone has grown and that kind of means. Now we bank that, we celebrate the win and then we start the next revolution cycle. And basically, now you're doing the same thing again, but celebrate the win, and then we start the next revolution cycle. And basically, now you're doing the same thing again, but with more experience, more understanding, more confidence, more capability, and you have more understanding of what you can do and now what you know is possible.

Speaker 1: 16:58

I guess the best way that I can look at this is sometimes it's just a matter of just breaking free of doubt or things that we hold ourselves back from. So for me, when I started running, I would just do 3K, that's it. And I remember thinking about oh, can I do 5K? Am I going to be able to do it? Is it going to be easy? What if it's too hard? What if I can't do it? And then I did it. Like you know, I planned it out, I set it out and I did it and it wasn't that bad. And then my new average became 5K and I'll do 5K on a regular basis. That's what I did. And then I started thinking about oh, can I do 10K? And even that it was like training for my first race. I that it was like training for my first race. I'm like, oh, this is going to be hard, it's going to be. You know, it's out of my comfort zone. What if it doesn't go to work? Do I need to have more water with me? Do I all these different things? But you do it and all of a sudden it's like it wasn't too bad. Right, I'm not saying it was easy, it just wasn't too bad.

Speaker 1: 17:56

And then you know, long story short is you progress, you, and what you thought was hard, tough, impossible, unimaginable becomes the reality of like you're more than capable. And you know, I always come back to this point. When I first started running, I remember literally Googling is it okay to do two 5k runs in a day? Because I thought maybe it's too dangerous or maybe, you know, it's going to open myself up to having an injury. Little did I know there's people out there running 50K, 30k, 20k, just as an everyday kind of thing. I am not kidding, there is people that do that.

Speaker 1: 18:35

I can't do that at the moment, but I can run a 50K. I've done it two times. I can do marathons. I've done that three times. I can do half marathons. I've done over like 25. I can do 10Ks. I've probably done over 50, right?

Speaker 1: 18:51

So the reality is, as you progress, you become more comfortable and more confident in doing those things. Don't sell yourself short. Just understand that you're just in a part of your timeline that requires you to grow a little bit more and there'll be always more time or more space or more, I guess, areas we can grow. But what I want to make sure you don't do is you just delay, that. It's passive. The time will pass anyway. So just make sure you're ticking over, you're enabling yourself and giving yourself that opportunity to grow. And that is how, essentially, we can leave our comfort zone and benefit from the power of progress, because progress will happen regardless if we're willing. Our comfort zone and benefit from the power of progress, because progress will happen regardless if we're willing to show up and let it happen. If not, the only thing that's going to progress is time and it's going to go on without you. That's the harsh reality. Appreciate you being here. If you did want to check out Magic Mind, jump over to the website again magicmindcom. Slash clfurlong and you can use the coupon clfurlong20 to get up to 56% off and 20% off your first subscription. I mean your first individual purchase as well.

Speaker 1: 19:54

If you do have any questions, comments about this episode. Maybe something resonated with you. Maybe you have a story yourself or maybe something's been working for you to grow your comfort zone. Check it down below in the comments self. Or maybe something's been working for you to grow your comfort zone. Check it down below in the comments. The best thing you can do otherwise to help this and support this podcast is share it. If you think someone else could benefit from hearing this or really needs to hear it, send them a link. Tell them why they should listen to it. Or maybe you're curious about something in this? Reach out to me. You can hit me up on the DMs or you can leave a comment here on YouTube. If you are watching, maybe you're listening as well and let's connect. Let's continue the conversation More than happy to do so. Otherwise, appreciate you being here and you have a wonderful day. Cheers.