Get out of your comfort zone. Or get in?

I’m lying on my couch reading a book. It’s warm, the light creates a cosy atmosphere, and I’ve just had a good meal. I feel great. The book is by a physicist about the laws of the universe – disruptive, challenging material, and as a non-physicist, I don’t understand everything right away. Nevertheless, everything is great. I’m getting closer to a highly specialised topic and want to learn more about it. I’m lying on my sofa, relaxed and content, and with every page I turn, I realise that I’m becoming smarter.

Management people would strongly disagree with me. They would call my sofa my ‘comfort zone’. As we all know, you can’t learn anything there. You can’t learn anything at all. To really learn, management people say, I have to get out of my comfort zone. At least get off my couch. Can I take the book with me?

Strength lies in the cold – right?

I’m lying in my warm bed on a winter evening, learning Spanish vocabulary through my headphones. My eyes are closed and I’m listening to the warm voice of my Spanish teacher. I’m not actually doing anything. Nothing that economists would call ‘work’. I breathe in and listen. I breathe out again and continue listening. From the outside, I am in a state of minimal energy consumption and maximum relaxation. A state in which management people would say: You’re not learning anything here. You can’t learn anything. You only learn outside, outside your warm bed. The bedroom doesn’t count, it’s still too much of a comfort zone. The hallway: better. It’s cooler there, and your jacket is hanging on the hook. Now turn off the vocabulary app and put on that jacket. Go out into the night, quickly. It’s raining and 2 degrees above zero? Great conditions: you’ll learn something here! Take the book and read it outside in the rain. Don’t be a wimp, you want to get ahead, don’t you? Listen to your vocabulary at the same time – better out here in the dreary dark street than at home in bed, that’s logical.

Out of your comfort zone! That’s the only way to move forward, right?

If we want to make children strong for life, what do we do? We give them security, warmth and love. We strengthen their self-confidence and give them the certainty that we will always be there for them. Comfort zone? Yes, a lot. So that they become strong. So that they learn. So that they grow. We would never dream of putting them outside for several days to fend for themselves. We give them a space, a zone where they can feel comfortable. Crazy as it may seem, they learn there every day. And they grow. Until they are adults and can stand on their own two feet. If they felt particularly comfortable with us, they will be happy to come back again and again. If we have exposed them to the cold wind of our performance-oriented society, they will have stomach aches when they have to visit us.

Where do they learn better? In a mouldy, dilapidated classroom with a sergeant who terrifies them every day, or in a warm, friendly atmosphere where the sun is shining and the teacher treats them with love and attention? Why do we believe that the comfort zone is bad for us and that we need to get out of it as quickly as possible?

‘To comfort someone’ means to give someone solace [1]. It means taking someone in your arms and silently conveying: I feel you. We keep the cruel, cold world outside away from you for a brief moment: you are safe with us. We hold you steady when you have lost your footing. We want you to be well and feel comfortable. We will catch you.

The German Wikipedia article on the comfort zone is surprisingly short, but takes a similar view [2]. It quotes author Brené Brown, who defines the comfort zone as follows: ‘Where our insecurity, scarcity and vulnerability are minimised – where we believe we will have access to enough love, food, talent, time and admiration. Where we feel we have some control. […]’ The haven that catches us when we fall. The home we all long for.

Naked in the snow: That’s where we learn, isn’t it?

Whiny sentimentality that gets no one anywhere, says the management guy. Stop hugging and get out into the cold, now! There, haha, in the cold, where the wind is blowing right in your face: That’s much better for you!

Trust me: your comfort zone is harmful; you only grow when we leave you standing outside in the rain, sad and alone. If Henry IV had gone straight into the warm kitchen to the pot of cabanossi in the snowfall at Canossa, we wouldn’t be talking about it today! Freezing half-naked in the snow – that’s what advanced European history! Not so much the monarchy, but never mind. Cold and hardship, tears and unfairness: that’s what we need for our well-being, capice?!

The comfort zone model [5] originates from education and distinguishes between three phases: The first phase, the comfort zone, gives us security. The second phase is the learning phase. It is assumed that we lose our security and encounter new challenges whose outcome we cannot predict. Uncertainty reigns, but when we face this uncertainty, we grow. The third phase is the panic phase, a phase of complete overwhelm.

Which phase am I in when I am faced with something new, but find it quite amusing, exciting or joyful? Is this still the comfort phase, because I feel secure deep down and the new challenge hardly causes me any stress? When curiosity outweighs uncertainty, when anticipation and embracing the new situation seem completely ‘normal’? Am I still in the comfort zone? And am I not learning anything?

Or am I already in the learning phase? Is there ever a moment when I am not learning anything? Even in the evening, watching a Rosamunde Pilcher tearjerker, I learn something new: I get to know new characters, admire new landscapes, deconstruct yet another rip-off of an ancient plot…

For example, if I go on holiday to a place I’ve never been before and don’t understand the language. Then I’m in the learning phase, right? I drive there in my own car, the hotel is booked and my family is with me. So a lot of things are ‘safe’ – but for me, it’s still my comfort zone. But what if I had to travel alone? Would I be in the learning phase then? And would I consider the transition between phases to be relevant, or would I simply say, ‘Hey, I’m on holiday, and I don’t know that restaurant over there, so I’ll just go in.’ Quite naturally, because I’m curious.

Less need to venture out

When do I really need to step out of my comfort zone, and when can I still keep one foot inside? I would venture to say that it is excessive how often managers want to push us out of our comfort zone. We get along just fine if we are open to new things out of a pure human desire to discover and take on challenges. And sometimes also out of the hope that something will get better.

When I look for a new job, for example, I do so for several reasons:

• Because I got bored in my old job. I can’t stand boredom in my comfort zone; I always need a little action.
• Because I want to earn more money. Then I can make my comfort zone even more comfortable, yeah!
• Because I want to pursue a career that is not (quickly enough) possible in my current job. Then I look for exactly what I want; that’s comfort zone in its purest form!

So I’m ready to try something new because I want to. And I also know relatively clearly what I want, so I have a relatively clear idea of my desire, the process and the consequences. That gives me psychological security. And I’m confident that it will work out because I’m in control. Isn’t that the definition of a comfort zone?

Of course, there can also be negative reasons for looking for a job:

• Because I didn’t get along with my colleagues or my superiors. In that case, the situation wasn’t great and can only get better; there is still uncertainty. But I am actively looking for something new, and I am also controlling the process towards something better. I am expanding my comfort zone back to its normal size, I am not stepping out of it!
• Because I lost my job. Okay, then it’s even more important that I have a reliable comfort zone to fall back on! Security and comfort are important right now, so why, of all times, am I being asked to step out of my comfort zone, my dear kind-hearted manager?
• Because I can no longer do my current job. Yes, then I have to be brave and admit it to myself. But being brave is much easier when I feel psychologically secure. The demand to step out of my comfort zone is a stress factor here. No: secure your comfort zone and find a job that suits you. But stay in it! Don’t add to your stress!

I don’t understand why you have to ‘step out of your comfort zone’ to find a new job. It’s supposed to be better than the old one, so it should be a bigger, more comfortable, cosier comfort zone than before! I have to smile when HR consultants even demand that you leave your comfort zone if you want to get ahead in your career. Apparently, a career is such a bad thing that it’s incompatible with the comfort zone. I would sell the career leap differently, but I wish all HR professionals every success. Personally, I feel right at home in my varied comfort zone…

The goal is to get into the comfort zone, not out of it!

Actually, we want to get ‘into’ the comfort zone, don’t we? We want to arrive, be loved, leave all stress and anger outside the door. But then a defiant manager rings our doorbell and wants to lure us out.

I go jogging sometimes and would like to run a half marathon soon. Yes, training is torture, but it’s torture I can handle, I can control. If it gets too bad, I can stop at any time. And I have to when my heel spur burns and my lower leg cramps up. Torture for the sake of torture is harmful. So is sport that destroys you. Do I only grow when I really push myself and get completely out of breath? Or do I grow much more in a cleverly chosen training zone where I can still breathe reasonably well? Which training is more promising? And which is ultimately closer to my comfort zone?

I am writing this blog post on the anniversary of a tragedy. There was no comfort zone in the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh [6]. There, 3,000 seamstresses sat crammed together and sewed comfortable clothes for us Europeans under inhumane conditions before the building collapsed. 1,135 people lost their lives. They had no comfort zone, nowhere. This is also because we in Europe want things cheap, cheap. The demand that progress can only be made by staying outside one’s comfort zone sounds cynical here. But that is probably the real meaning of this management mantra: we should get out of our comfort zones because they cost money. Because they are a luxury that reduces profits. We should be uncomfortable and miserable, it should be exhausting, we should freeze and suffer.

Only then will we be wiser.

Notes (mostly in German)

Do you want to win customers while staying in your comfort zone? Then take a look at Harald Illes’ beautiful website.

[1] LEO: to comfort
[2] Wikipedia: Komfortzone
[3] Planet Wissen: Heinrich IV. und Canossa
[4] esssen 6 trinken: Infos & Tipps: Cabanossi
[5] Karrierbibel: 3-Zonen-Modell
[6] Wikipedia: Einsturz der Rana-Plaza-Textilfabrik

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