Break Out Of The Comfort Zone With These 16 Exercises

When you use reverse engineering, you focus on your reward. So when you want to exit the comfort zone, give yourself a reward for taking action. Then, define why the step is valuable.

For example, why don't you try to become “sillier” as a leadership trait and for your culture, so to become both more approachable and more empathetic.

One effective way of manifesting your wishes is to live them, so you can imagine yourself at a higher level, achieving them.

So challenge yourself to go visit an open house at your ideal home or book a test drive on your dream car.

Leave your comfort zone behind! Your dream life is ready to be manifested.

One of the reasons your remain in your comfort zone is that you overthink, overanalyze and overcomplicate. 

But you can combat that by practicing fast decisions. So next time you sit down to order a meal, or play the “what to watch on Netflix” game, give yourself two minutes to make a decision, and then stick to it.

There is no substitute for persistent practice to develop new habits and skills. And the same goes for learning to embrace the ambiguity and messiness of life.

No one likes uncertainty, but you can learn to lean into the darkness. You can develop your personal confidence in your own ability to successfully navigate the unknown.

To get “grounded” is an effective way to tap into your courage and step into new desired behaviors. It has been proven that mindful breathing (six breaths in 30 seconds) reduces stress and anxiety and increases focus and creativity.

You should see every encounter through the lens of serving others as your customer. It doesn't matter if they are a potential client, a colleague, an internal peer or a direct report, how can you be of service to them?

“Seeing” others in this way takes the focus off of you, and it can activate their comfort and trust in you, which in turn, helps them engage with you and truly connect.

A mental trick you could adopt to exit the comfort zone is to change your perspective. Learn to be crystal clear on what you want to achieve, and then search your mind for beliefs that are getting in the way of your success. Then, challenge those beliefs to reshape your view of your own potential in the context of what is truly possible.

Sometimes your thinking can be irrational or illogical. When you feel anxious and burned up about something that might happen, ask yourself, “How do I know?”

Answering this question makes you expose false assumptions and reduces your vulnerability to assign intention to things that others do and assuming the worst possible scenario.

The core of the comfort zone stays in the familiarity you have with your environment.

Try approaching new concepts and experiences using one of the seven pillars of mindfulness: the curiosity of a child’s mind. What was once new, unknown and perhaps even “scary” is now familiar. As children, we learn and discover with limitless possibility; so how can you revive that inner child?

The "9-6-3” strategy is an effective exercise to step out of your comfort zone right away. It is natural for each one of us to find our pocket of brilliance and stay there. To break that, you should find nine people on your team to whom you can contribute, six you can turn to for support, and three who have influence within the company, then connect with them. 

When you plan on exiting the comfort zone, you should start where you already find a lot of pleasure. Do you love to cook, read or watch movies? Find one activity that you already love and spice it up by doing something different. If you like to exercise, instead of taking that walk to the park, take a different route and see how that feels. You’ll instantly notice new things, see yourself asking different questions and feel refreshed by new insights.

To step out of your comfort zone, you can try to flip the script and envision yourself as someone else. It can be a friend, a colleague or anyone who impacted your actions. Envision their life, experience, perception and potential response. Think about what you would say to a friend who was in your situation, and then tell yourself that.

If you don’t love networking, you should definitely go to a networking event with a goal of meeting five new people. Do you struggle with building your brand online? Commit to posting one thing on LinkedIn each day for five days. Setting a specific and achievable goal makes it easier to break out of your comfort zone.

If you change one thing about your routine every day, you will always remain out of your comfort zone.

Take another route to your office, for example; or change your morning routine by going for a walk before having your coffee, instead of drinking your coffee first thing while listening to the news. Introduce one novel thing into each day. It could be something as simple as trying a new recipe or a new coffee flavor.