#ComfortZones #ChangingComfortZones #FindingComfortZones #CreatingComfortZones
To borrow from a Regions Bank TV ad, one does not get out of his or her comfort zone, he or she changes comfort zones.
Comfort zones are not always comfortable.
You may have a job that earns you a paycheck, and that you can do relatively easily.
But, it’s not necessarily getting you where you want to be in life.
Therefore, to get what you want, you may have to change comfort zones.
In this labor market, there are certainly available options for job changes.
So, what should you change to? It may depend on your education, experience and other things about you that employers may like.
It also may depend on how willing you may be to do something that perhaps you had never thought about doing.
Once you’ve decided on your new comfort zone, then you have to show your new employer that you are more than capable of doing the job.
That may not just entail doing the job correctly or smartly. It may involve doing it with enthusiasm.
Certainly, it may be difficult to be enthusiastic about some jobs. But, if they are rewarding enough in terms of pay and perks, you may need to use those rewards to ignite your enthusiasm.
If neither the job nor the rewards are stellar, you may have to consider doing something else.
Being happy at work has been an elusive goal for many. For some, the job is a means to an end. For others, the job could be simply a dead end.
Still, for others, a job may enable a person to do something outside of work that gives him or her joy. Perhaps one works for a living, but lives for children, family, hobbies etc. The work enables the other.
For some others, the work is the pleasure. It’s been said that if it were not “work,” they would not pay you. But those who love their jobs certainly want to get paid, but still love their work.
So, what, in work and life, gives you comfort, or makes you want to get up in the morning?
Are you not feeling either pleasure or comfort in your life? Such feelings don’t always come naturally, or serendipitously.
Sometimes, YOU have to look for them. In some cases, you can find them among your existing activities. In other cases, you have to find new activities to give you those feelings.
It’s OK to talk to friends or family – or a professional in more severe cases – to find out what may be missing in your life.
Often, the people you know best can either make you see the good things already in front of you, or spur you to find something different, or better.
So, if your comfort zone needs changing, it’s OK to change it. But, before doing so, figure out what you want from life. That will guide you toward either a comfort-zone change, or finding the comfort in your current zone.
There’s no need to slog in a fog when you can have fun in the sun.
Peter
Tag Archives: comfort zones
CHAIRS, COMFORT AND ADJUSTMENTS
#officechairs #adjustablechairs #comfortablechairs
Life is like an adjustable office chair.
You get to your work station and adjust your chair until it’s perfectly comfortable for you and, of course, ergonomically correct.
As your work station changes, your chair changes. Or, if you keep your same comfortable chair, and your work station changes, you readjust the chair. Simple, right?
So why do many have so much trouble adjusting to life changes?
Sure, readjustments in life are not as simple as those for a chair.
Still, they have to be done.
How dare anyone take away the comfort of your chair?
To be sure, they can, and they will.
This thought about chairs and comfort beg another question: are you SO comfortable in that chair that you not dare give it up willingly, even if something better came along?
Yes, certain comforts can be inhibiting. Sometimes, risking potential discomfort can make one even more comfortable eventually.
So, as you sit in your perfectly adjusted chair, what are you feeling right now? Are you so content that you fear disrupting that comfort? Are you anxious that someone else may disrupt it, and you can’t stop him? Have you worn enough of the padding from the chair that you are aiming to retire to your rocking chair, with the attitude: time served? Or, are you restless, bored and/or frustrated?
If you are, or believe you might be, part of that latter group, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may see something you’ve never seen before, which could be uncomfortable. Or, you may see a potentially lucrative and fun new comfort zone.
Chairs, work stations and comforts can and will come and go. Just as you finally get comfortable in a new chair or work station, it could change. You have to decide whether the readjustments will be easy or hard. You have to decide that you will examine ALL adjustments before finding the right one.
Remember: life is an adjustable office chair. Find your comfort, realize it will be temporary and look for your next comfort zone.
May you not sit still as your chairs, or adjustments, change.
Peter
GET UP, DUST OFF AND ACT
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” Henry David Thoreau
Circumstances can try to beat you down.
Yet, you get back up.
It’s part of who we are. When something knocks us down, we get up. We dust ourselves off. And, we go on doing what we need to do.
The terrorists try to knock us down. Sometimes, they succeed. When they do, we get up, dust ourselves off, mourn the dead, take care of the injured and go on being the free people they hate.
When our jobs go away, we hurt for a while. But, ultimately, we find solace in our ability to move on. Often, when we move on, we move to bigger and better things.
When circumstances beat you down, there’s often very little you could have done to prevent them. But you have full control over how you respond to them.
Sometimes, it means leaving the coziness of one’s comfort zone. Yes, even the cushiest comfort zones wear out. When they do, we have to get up, dust ourselves off and go find a new comfort zone.
Finding a new comfort zone is, by definition, uncomfortable at first. Perhaps, we have to try some things we’ve never tried. We have to learn things we didn’t know before. Most importantly, we have to ACT. Sitting in a worn-out comfort zone will not produce the new one that you need.
We have to get up, dust ourselves off and look for a new comfort zone.
We may look in places we’ve never looked before. Sometimes, we have to get away from the friends we’ve always had. Perhaps they are uncomfortable, too. And, they want YOU to remain as uncomfortable as they are, for as long as they are uncomfortable. Perhaps they sit and wait for the new comfort zone to come, and whine when it won’t come by itself.
Sometimes, our friends talk only about the past. They see the past as the best days or years of their lives. They see a future of gloom and doom. When not sitting in their worn-out comfort zone, they stand, with hands on hips, looking in disgust at the future.
We, on the other hand, see the future as bright. In fact, we are going to make it bright by finding a new comfort zone. That old comfort zone is gone forever.
So where do we find our new comfort zone? Perhaps it is staring us in the face, and we don’t see it. In other words, we may be looking at what’s good in our lives, and not notice it. The first step is noticing the good.
The second step is looking for the great future of our dreams. That may not come to us overnight, and it may come in a form we are not expecting. To check out one such form, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Few know about it yet, but those who do, see it as the best thing they’ve ever done.
As we look for our future comfort zone, we may make new friends. We may see good things come into our lives that we had never expected. What’s important is that we stood up, dusted ourselves off and acted.
Not all actions yield the results we want. So we try again. We keep moving and growing. We make our own new lives. Thoreau never envisioned times as we have seen recently. But he was spot on about man’s ability to get up, dust himself off and act.
Peter
SMALL TOWNS, BIG CITIES, GROWING AS PEOPLE
Many of us grow up in small towns, rural areas or neighborhoods of larger cities and grow fond of the area, the people etc.
But, when we enter adulthood, perhaps going off to college, it hits us: we may not realize our full potential if we settle down back home. Settle may be the operative word here.
New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed this phenomenon. He wondered whether, in the meritocracy vs. government race, it would be so bad if meritocracy won.
In a nutshell, a young person leaves home and goes off to college. He realizes his limited potential if he moved back home, where only a small percentage of the folks living there had college degrees. He decides to move to a place where, as Brooks quotes, up to 50% of the people have college degrees, i.e. San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, Washington or the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
The folks back home may call him snooty for not wanting to move home. But he has a degree from an elite university, i.e. Stanford or an Ivy League school. He got good enough grades back home to get into the prestigious school, did well once he got there and now HAS to reside where people are more like the new him.
WAITING TO HEAR THOSE WORDS
A friend relayed the story of his childhood. He grew up on a farm in Georgia. When he wasn’t in school, he was working on the farm. He enjoyed some aspects of farming, but it was backbreaking work.
Finally, in his teen years, he told his father that he did not want to do this the rest of his life.
His father, it turned out, had been waiting years to hear those words.
Farming taught him hard work. But it also taught him how NOT to spend his life. There was so much more out there.
He stayed in Georgia, but had a superb sales career.
So what’s wrong with growing up in a small town, or rural area, or a specific neighborhood of a city? Nothing at all. But the kids grow up in an age of equality – everyone is the same and should be treated as such. When they move on to bigger and better things, they have to learn to go for distinction. They must be more accomplished, more cutting edge, to thrive in the new world, as Brooks points out.
This distinction even occurs in higher education. Many universities look to hire professors from the elite schools. Even the graduates they produce are not good enough, Brooks says.
The world demands innovation, collaboration, global thinking. Where one has grown up often thrives on a collective sameness and routine. There is security in sameness. There is tradition in sameness. There is equality in sameness. But for those who want to thrive in the world, change must be the operative word.
There is good news for those who may live in the sameness of “home,” wherever that is. There are many ways for you to prosper without leaving home. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Like the young college grad who needs to move out of his comfort zone into the bigger world, those left at home may have to leap outside their comfort zones. And, it can be done without leaving home.
The moral here is that sameness and equality may not improve the world as it should. Those seeking to see their great potential thrive have to depart their world of sameness and venture out into the world of competition, and, yes, discomfort.
It isn’t to say that they shouldn’t help the folks back home. But, they don’t have to settle for the sameness of their parents’ world. The more people who jump from their comfort zones to find their full potential, the better the world will be. Striving to be equal has far worse consequences than striving to be better.
Peter