Comfort means you’re safe, you’re in a domain that is not opposing or challenging, you’re familiar with that around you and there is no intent on changing from your large, strong and coo-shy safety net, but what happens when you want to break free from that net, jump back into the ocean or spread your wings? DISCOMFORT! Facing new challenges is exactly that as it means taking a risk, a chance, grasping at an opportunity. There's nothing comfortable about striving to achieve a goal but there is joy in the making of dreams.
A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown. - Denis Waitley
As black women we are all to ready to clutch to our comfort zones, we take a step, two or three, achieve a university degree, a white career and then phew we made it, and it feels good being right here, so let’s stay right here, in the comfort zone. If that’s were your dream ended then congratulations be proud of yourself but that doesn’t mean you have to stop dreaming.
We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present. - Thomas Edison
Discomfort is falsely associated with failure and we misinterpret the feeling of discomfort and evade it where we should welcome it. Ever heard the expression ‘no pain, no gain’? We understand this very well for beauty and fitness but fail to recognise the same for our professional and personal progression, although it’s entirely the same game.
Progress always involves risk; you can't progress to second base and also keep your foot on first. - Christie Mason
Success is always preceded by a temporary condition of discomfort and discomfort is a temporary condition of expanding your comfort zone, but the longer you dwells in a comfortable the greater the number of situations that make you feel uncomfortable will grow.
Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined. Comfort kills! - T. Harv Eker
Comfort is the most potent inhibitor of success. We must remember that as black people it took many stepping far outside of their comfort zone for us to finally arrive where we are today. In two of my earlier articles I address the history of Queen Amina the African warrior queen who achieved one of the greatest military success in African history and Harriet Tubman who refused to remain a slave and went on to free hundreds more. These great black women are fine examples that demonstrate; the higher the measures of discomfort the greater the achievement.
Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. - Alan Alda
In order to rise we must prepare to be discomforted, expect discomfort and welcome it with a “Hello old friend, let’s push the boundaries together again”. Make discomfort a familiar friend and not a stranger in so far as your competence allows and where is doesn’t find the tools to make it do so.
Original article can be found here: Why you should Break Free from Comfort.
Comments
Hey Akiyia, you are most welcome, just like you I am at the cross roads myself and decided to move away from law and start something that I have always loved which is writing. I was coaxed out of writing as a child to pursue that is called a more "stable career" in the area of law, but that never made me feel fulfilled or happy. I think about all the time what I have wasted and how much more I could have developed my writing in that time and where I would be as a writer now, but I know that God knows best, I had to have the experience that I have had this far to build the passion and life experiences that I need to succeed and inspire others.
So I know how you feel and I encourage you to spend your life in a career that makes you happy than one that simple brings in good money, your soul is more important to fulfill than your pocket. Here's a scripture that keeps me going when I think grap if I change from law to writing I'm going to financial cripple myself:
Luke 12:24-28 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. If that is how God clothes the grass of the fields, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you.
God's got our backs so If its hair you want to do GO FOR IT, GO GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOOOOOO! All the other things will follow.
I needed this! I don't often come to this site like I
should. But this was conformation from the Lord!
I am about to get out the medical field and do something
I have always loved to do Hair. Alot of people are so negative
about my decisions. But I BLess God he has Given me a great husband
that supports me. Thanks again for this Post....