Why You Shouldn’t `Get Out of Your Comfort Zone`

            Almost every single personal development course on the market suggests “getting out of your comfort zone” in order to accomplish your goals, break bad habits, and grow into a more enlightened human being.  The phrase “get out of your comfort zone can mean different things and if it is taken the wrong way, getting out of your comfort zone can be disastrous.  I am certainly not against any of these personal development courses, I am actually a big fan of some of them, especially the Peak Potentials courses.  The most widely known course by Peak Potentials is the Millionaire Mind Intensive.

            Anyway, let’s now consider a few different scenarios to better explain my statements and how they relate to health:

Scenario 1 – Every day you do ten pushups and ten squats and you are quite comfortable with this number of repetitions.  You are enjoying a healthy weight, an increase in strength, greater endurance, and an overall feeling of better health.  Today, you decide not to exercise and instead, you watch some TV and play a few games of solitaire on your computer.  You feel lousy because your body is inactive and you are uncomfortable.  Congratulations, you `got out of your comfort zone`.

Scenario 2 – Today, you decide to do fifteen push-ups, and fifteen squats instead of ten.  You know that an increase in repetitions will lead to an increase in strength, an increase in endurance, and better overall health.  Your arms and legs are sore due to the increased repetitions, and doing an extra five was a bit of a struggle.  You challenged yourself and, as a result, you got out of your comfort zone.

            As you can see, both scenarios resulted in getting out of your comfort zone, but scenario 2 was much healthier.  Let’s look at two more scenarios:

Scenario 3 – Your diet is excellent, you eat plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts, and the occasional organic steak.  Today, you decide to cheat by going to a party and pigging out on snacks like chips, cookies, cakes, and alcohol.  Later that night, you are bloated, nauseous, and you have terrible heartburn and indigestion.  Well, you are very uncomfortable now.

Scenario 4 – At the same party, you decide to challenge yourself by sticking to you health lifestyle and only having one slice of birthday cake, which you thoroughly enjoy.  You decide that you really don’t want the chips or the cookies.  It was a little uncomfortable to resist all those sweets, but you feel better because of your decision.

            Getting out of your comfort zone can be a very good thing, or it can be a very bad thing.  When you get out of your comfort zone, it should result from challenging yourself and the reason for getting out is just as important as the act.