Comfort Zones are so 2019!

Do you hear the knock on the door delivering your mission orders to the life you’ve always known is possible?

Here’s the hiccup….

The next thing you are likely to hear sounds something like: Do I have what it takes to make that happen? Isn’t that too big to attempt? Do I deserve it?

It boils down to our universal human condition, which includes a natural resistance to change.

Symptoms of this natural reaction are:

* Feeling totally overwhelmed

* Our inner voice expressing doubt and fear

This is precisely why most New Year resolutions fail by February.

Change, even for the better, is scary because it means getting outside our comfort zone!

Our doubting and fearful inner voice is trying to keep us safe. However, listening to these voices often keeps us stuck.

I suggest we politely decline this well intended advice to stay in our comfort zone and choose another less comfortable route charted directly toward our goals, dreams and aspirations.

To battle this resistance, we need three things:

1. Strategies that work

2. The courage and determination of a hero

3. To act

So, let’s talk strategy!

I knew there had to be some science around getting outside our comfort zone, and there is!

Clinical Psychologist Dr. Noam Shpancer, who specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders, explains there’s a sure-fire way to lesson our debilitating anxiety and fear, and it’s called habituation.

What that means is the more often we do something that makes us nervous the less nervous we will be each time.

Familiar things are less scary and that’s hard-wired into our human genes.

Habituation recently worked like a charm for me! I was so nervous about doing a Facebook live I cancelled my first Tori Belle Affiliate live, trying to put it off for as long as possible.

Doing my first live for all the affiliates was too far of a stretch. So, I decided to host my first live on my private Facebook page about something easy for me to talk about, putting on magnetic liner and lashes!

My Facebook friends and family loved it and I'd never had such a strong and positive response before! And the best thing is it was fun! It felt like a special event with friends, or conversations in my classroom, two of my favorite things...without leaving my house!

I was ready to stretch a bit further and host my first live for the Tori Belle affiliates. I will never forget how extremely nervous I was. I had to sit alone in the back dressing room for 40 minutes meditating just to calm down. People thought I left the building and called me to see where I was.

1600 people watched my first live and it was such a rush I could barely sleep that night. It knew it was a turning point in my career and ability to make a deeper impact.

Each subsequent live I've needed less and less meditation to center myself, and nowadays a few deep breaths and I'm raring to go! The surprising thing is thanks to habituation my lives are a highlight of my month.

The irony is we often avoid the things that cause us anxiety and yet avoiding them is exactly what prevents us from feeling better!

And, when we avoid something, we reinforce the feeling of failure because we never gave ourselves a chance to succeed.

Our anxiety grows while our confidence shrinks!

If that wasn’t bad enough, avoidance strips us of the opportunity to practice, which is key in becoming good at anything!

What do we do about it?

It seems there’s no getting around being uncomfortable. We need to repeat short-term controlled exposure to what scares us.

I am reminded of a friends 11 year old son who was terrified of sleep-overs away from home. He desperately wanted to be part of the fun but couldn't get past his fear. Thanks to advice from a family counselor they employed habituation by having him stay over longer at his friends house each time. His mom would pick him up at 3:00 am in the morning if necessary. After a few tries he had his first successful overnight stay, which did wonders for his confidence!

According to Dr. Shpancer, exposure is by far the most potent medicine known to psychology.

This left me pondering, what is fear? My favorite acronym to start the new year explains it perfectly as False Evidence Appearing Real!

For example, people know that statistically flying is the safest form of travel but still feel the fear associated with flying.

Slowly exposing ourselves to fear is the best way to take the F.E.A.R. out of fear. The key is to get comfortable being uncomfortable, knowing this discomfort is a necessary growing pain to becoming your best you.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said it perfectly; “The only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”

Are you ready to courageously face your fear and stretch yourself out of your comfort zone?

Here are some key questions to help build your momentum:

• What have you been avoiding that makes you nervous?

• How long have you been avoiding it?

• How has avoiding this held you back from reaching your goals?

• What would it look like to get some calculated & controlled distance from your comfort zone?

• What resources and support will help you face your fear?

Grab your support squad and remember, success isn’t measured by the outcome, but by how many times you face your fear and become the hero of your own life!

Share how you're stretching your comfort zone in the comments below.