Tiny Buddha

Tiny Wisdom: On What’s Safe Feb 17, 2011 12:44 am | Lori Deschene “Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers.” -Unknown Though we all know that reaching our potential requires us to stretch outside of our comfort zones, it makes perfect sense that we want to be comfortable. And sometimes there’s no reason to fight that. My father, for example, enjoys doing manual labor and has never aspired to a job that entails a high level of responsibility. It’s not just a matter of staying with what’s comfortable. It’s a matter of allowing himself to have and honor personal preferences. Of course this begs the question: If we want to open ourselves up to new possibilities, how do we know when to stay with what feels comfortable and when to stretch into a new way of doing things? Tiny Buddha contributor Sonya Derian tackled this issue in her post When to Go with the Flow & When to Expand Your Comfort Zone. She suggests that we need to ask ourselves if we really want to experience something different, as opposed to just thinking we should. She writes, “…if you want something more, or at the very least different, you’re going to need to step out to discover what’s on the other side. If you want something different. Not everyone does.” The real challenge, it seems to me, is finding the courage to answer that for ourselves. If you feel resistant to leaving your comfort zone today, ask yourself: What is it that you really want? If it is something different, would achieving, creating, or experiencing that justify a potentially uncomfortable transition?