The comfort zone is a mental state that does not allow personal growth. It may be okay to be there for a while, but if you want to continue to grow and adjust to new situations, this is not a place to stay.
Here are the reasons why you should get out of it.
Once you step out of your comfort zone, despite being afraid, you may see that it was no big deal. Feeling insecure in the face of change is natural. That fear provides a warning that the road may not be easy. It becomes a problem when fear immobilizes you. The first step is to start recognizing what scares you is the uncertainty. It’s important to approach it with a positive mentality.
Leaving the comfort zone stimulates creativity to meet new possibilities and break what is routine. A study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology (2012) showed that students who spent a semester outside their country had higher scores on two tests of creativity than those students who had stayed in their home country.
Leaving your comfort zone and taking steps to achieve your goals will have positive effects on your self-efficacy beliefs (or confidence). This concept was initially introduced by Albert Bandura, a psychologist who developed Social Learning Theory, which explains the regulation of motivation and human action.
When we are young, we are more likely to take risks. As we get older, we begin to fear failure. How do we push through this learned helplessness and paralysis (do you know the “analysis paralysis”?)? This fear takes a serious emotional toll on us unless we change the way we think.
Leaving your comfort zone allows you to have new experiences and to engage in activities that you haven’t before, all while opening you up to meet new people. If you can try this, you are open to all sorts of possibilities you may not have thought possible.