How to find your ‘Discomfort Zone’
We’ve all heard it; “Get out of your comfort zone”.
It’s such a trite bit of advice, easy to nod in assent and carry on, without even considering what it really means. People just take it for granted that doing something different or new is outside of the comfort zone. Sadly, that’s just not true.
I’ve spent years confusing the idea of “getting out of my comfort zone” with hard work, but they’re very different creatures. I can spend a whole day thrashing away at a new piece of work and be utterly exhausted at the end of it. But it doesn’t mean I’ve gone out of my comfort zone.
Another thing I’ve confused the exit of this zone with is doing something new. I’d start a new project, visit a new place, take up a new hobby, try and learn a new skill or read a challenging book. These are all getting closer to the discomfort zone, but they’re not getting beyond border control. They’re undertaking something new within my life, experiencing something for the very first time and broadening the horizons of my consciousness, but no discomfort zone.
What I’m talking about is a full on, one-way ticket from the departure lounge of comfort. All these other things are merely excursions around comfort, little soujourns with my comfort blanket still dragging along behind me.
It’s taken 38 years to work out the true definition of leaving my comfort zone, because even when I thought I’d left it, or when other people told me I had, I was still surfing the boundaries of it.
Once I truly leave my comfort zone, it’s dark and scary out there, it’s really unpleasant, it’s nauseous, sickening and repulsive.
The confusion lays in the fact that the comfort zone can be challenging. I could start a new project and pile my entire being’s energy into it, but still be in my comfort zone. Because I don’t think the beginnings of a new project are particularly challenging. Often new projects are full of life, enthusiasm, ideas and boundless thoughts gushing forwards as I struggle to keep up with them. There’s no discomfort, just energy and enthusiasm.
With those new projects, it’s once the ideas and thoughts have been exhausted, the planning done, the ‘low hanging fruit’ picked that the challenge really starts. The initial tasks have been fulfilled and now, what is the direction?
I get it with my photography. It makes me feel sick. I want to throw my camera out of the window and walk away. I want to pack everything up, eat the food I’m supposed to be shooting and give up on taking the photos. I’m so accustomed to it now, that I get an unerring sense of fear and anxiety developing in my stomach when I’ve got a shoot coming along.
This sits at odds with the fact I love taking food photography and when I feel that utter sickness, the heaving discomfort in the core of my soul that makes me want to cry, I know I’m onto something. That feeling is the thing that will drive me forwards. I’ve learned that the only thing I can do is challenge it. By this point, I’m in my discomfort zone and the world is unpleasant and sickening. The only way forward is to focus and direct the whole of my energy into the task at hand. Anything else would be going backwards and I’m loathed to do that with anything in life.
This awkward moment is where the magic happens. When the mounting nausea and sense of impending doom that accompanies the discomfort zone heads towards it’s crescendo, I will make a decision, I will change my setup, I’ll change my tack and try something new. Just after doing that, I normally look at a shot I’ve taken and think “Fucking hell. That photo is fucking awesome”. I find I’m looking at something I’ve never done before, that exceeds all expectations of what I wanted to achieve. I know that sounds arrogant, but we’re all capable of far more than we think we are, as long as we challenge ourselves.
My message to you is not to think in terms of actions, because your discomfort zone doesn’t lay in actions. The discomfort zone lays in the contemplation of actions, rather than the execution of them. You can work yourself silly in your comfort zone, but only when you stop working and think about facing something which will challenge your soul on an intimate level will you ever find your discomfort zone. And that, my friends, is where the good shit happens.
