I'm sure you've heard of comfort zones. You've probably spent a long time in one. Maybe you're in one right now?
However, there is one problem with comfort zones, they eventually lead to frustration and lack of fulfillment as they are in exact opposition with our innate human nature.
We as humans are designed to seek growth and evolution. So at every milestone opportunity we get (birthday's, new year's day), we try to resolve to improve some aspect of our lives. This is what makes us different from other species on this planet.
So the question is:, "Why do we struggle to get out of the comfort zone so much? Perhaps, we need to look at it from a different angle.
A few years ago, I became enamored with obstacle course races, not because I wanted to win medals or have bragging rights, but because I was obsessed with breaking barriers and feeling accomplished. It all started with conquering a 12 inch box jump. Believe it or not, jumping on a 12" box was a HUGE deal for me at one point. That led me to aim for the 18, 24 and 30 inch boxes.
Then I ran a few OCRs, a local ninja warrior competition as well as a fit fem phenom competition in my gym. The training for each was brutal but instead of focusing on the BIG prize at the end, I focused on the daily/ weekly goals and celebrated each win as much as I would celebrate finishing those races.
My point is that we often get started with our resolutions the wrong way, we look at the mountain top as the goal, and as we climb the first few steps, the goal starts to appear too far and too big and we start to get overwhelmed and give up. Oprah, for example, didn't set out to make millions, she sought to break barriers that came in her way and fame and fortune followed. Michael Jordan didn't set out to be famous, he set out to crush each goal he set and despite each failure he kept pushing and that's what led to his success.
Most successful people focus on overcoming obstacles and consistently breaking barriers and eventually find more success than they ever thought possible.
Let's take a newborn baby for example, they aren't born knowing that they will run one day, they simply start by exploring their surroundings and as they get comfortable they inherently want to challenge themselves to roll over, sit up, crawl, walk and finally run. But if someone were to tell them to focus only on running, they would probably never get past the roll over.
So if we reverse engineered our goals and broke them down into consistent daily or weekly habits, wouldn't we fare better?
For example, if you are planning to run a marathon, why not aim for consistency and focus on improving your PR (personal record) each time you run, even if it is by a small improvement each time?
Put your focus on your daily habits and not the huge mountain you want to climb. Celebrate each milestone, no matter how small and before you know it, your baby steps will lead to giant leaps.
Before you can fly, learn to crawl, walk and run. Let's go warriors, your dream life awaits.
Conquer the days and weeks and when you look back in 12 months, you would have conquered the year.
Blogger bio: Chitra Rochlani is a NASM certified weight loss and body transformation coach. Chitra empowers her clients to break free of the diet mentality and develop a super speedy metabolism using fitness, nutrition and mindset tools. She believes that her personal weight loss transformation and work with hundreds of clients gives her a unique perspective in an industry focused on quick fixes and gimmicks. She uses her "Fit Warrior" method to combine nutrition, fitness and mindset to help her clients look, feel and perform at their best.
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