Why do we call a comfort zone a comfort zone?

That makes it sound like a place where you want to be. But do you? I’ve discovered that everything that makes life exciting is found outside my ‘comfort’ zone.

A manager once told me “If you do this work for a couple of years, then you will discover - over time - that the scary part of not-knowing-how-to-do-it will be replaced by a feeling of certainty that you know exactly how to do it”. I followed her advice, but what I discovered was that the scary part was actually the fun part. It was the part that made me learn. It kept me humble. It gave me an open mind to all that I could learn. The moment I started to go on auto-pilot was the moment it got boring and also the moment I started to think too highly of myself as an expert. Becoming an expert is much more fun than being one.

What is the comfort zone? It’s a mental image over what you can do opposed to what you cannot do. It provides you with a mental condition in which you feel safe. It’s about safety. It’s about the first layers of Maslow’s pyramid. And ultimately about the fear of losing what you have.

Fear is the opposite of love and never a good advisor. In your comfort zone you feel save. But is this real safety? The desire for security has ancient roots for us humans. It had a purpose to keep you safe in dangerous situations, like being eaten by a lion. But today we have no lions crossing our path in the shopping mall. Too much security can limit you in your personal growth.

What is not the comfort zone? If you are bold and step out of your comfort zone, then you will step in your learning zone. You will have new experiences that might influence the size of your comfort zone. Some people say that if you step too far out of your comfort zone, you will end up in your panic zone. Which I understand, but getting so far as at least seeing the border of your panic zone will help you discover how large the learning zone actually is.

If I look at Csikszentmihalyi's flow model, I recognize that anxiety is to be expected when the change level is high and skill level is low. But if I ever want to increase my skill level, than I have even more reason to be in my learning zone to actually develop news skills. This will allow me to move from anxiety via arousal to a flow. Let’s put aside the panic zone for now. The naming convention of the comfort zone is still confusing me. What is so comfortable about a place that doesn’t let you learn? That prevents you from growing to other levels in Maslow’s pyramid? So here’s what I do myself, mentally:

My “comfort zone” is my home. I think that comfort is closely related to something we can call our home. And what is our home? I’m not referring to your house, while it quite often is your house. I’m referring to a place where you can be at peace. At rest. Zen. Where you can be totally yourself without any masks. Where you can recuperate. Where you can digest what you have learned and allow the creative process to subconsciously progress.

My “learning zone” is when I leave my home for impressions and experiences. When I leave home I learn, I experiment, I discover life and I evolve. I bring those new conscious experiences back home and I train the habit of crossing the borders of my home and my learning zone. Every time I cross it. The next time will be easier to look at it as a learning experience and not as something I’ve done wrong.

And that becomes the way I live. This way I’m not thinking dualistically (in a good comfortable and a bad uncomfortable place). I look at both as one dynamic thing that makes me comfortable as a whole. I think that everything I just said comes down to not being afraid. Thomas Edison said it much sharper when he underlined his persistence to create a light bulb: ‘I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that do not work”.

The original blog is in Dutch an can be found here.