Comfort zone or challenge?

Which do you tend to choose: comfort or challenge? Since the brain’s number one job is to keep us, most of us default toward comfort and safety. But over time, that tendency can slowly hurt our growth, our confidence, and even our sense of aliveness.

Last week, I trained a group of leaders at United Way on how to show up as their best selves, drawing from the Authenticity module of my Pathways to Change framework. We spent time reflecting on moments when they had taken action with courage — times they chose to leave their comfort zone to do something that mattered. In this exercise, we recognized that confidence didn’t precede the action; it came from taking the action with courage.

That session brought me back to one of the children’s books that I loved to read to my daughters: Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt.

Scaredy Squirrel is a master of the comfort zone. He meticulously plans his daily routine, which never changes. He never leaves his nut tree for fear of disaster. But one day, he accidently falls from the tree. In falling, Scaredy Squirrel discovers he’s not an ordinary squirrel — he’s a flying squirrel! He feels alive for the first time. And so he schedules a jump into his daily routine.

Why comfort isn’t alway “safe”

Staying in our comfort zone isn’t always the protective choice our brains think it is – according to research.

Dr. Amy Arnsten, a neurobiologist at Yale School of Medicine, has studied the effects of stress and lack of stress on the brain. Her research found that both similarly affect the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-order thinking, focus, and decision-making. Like an inverted U, too much and too little stress similarly impair our cognitive performance and working memory.

In trying to stay safe and avoid stress, or choosing our comfort zone like Scaredy Squirrel, we can hurt our access to the prefrontal cortex and harm our cognitive functioning just as when we’re exposed to too much stress.

In addition, when we’re bored and chronically under-stimulated, the brain tends to get stuck in the default mode network which is associated with depression and rumination and can strengthen negative thought patterns.

So the comfort zone isn’t always the safe and calm place it seems to be.

The benefits of choosing a challenge

Unlike Scaredy Squirrel, we don’t need an accidental fall to discover what we’re capable of. We can choose to leap.

Taking on a challenge supports us in three ways:
(1) it breaks us out of the comfort-zone cycle which can lead to rumination;
(2) it builds confidence through taking courageous action; and
(3) it helps us feel exhilarated and more alive.

What’s one challenge you’ve been putting off? What’s one action, just outside your comfort zone, that you could take this week?

You might discover, like Scaredy Squirrel did, that you can fly.