GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

 

GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

 NEIL DONALD WALSH once said that to be successful in life, it is the area which begins at the end of your comfort zone. Simply when you stop letting fears and anxiety hold you back will you become more successful in all aspects of your life unfortunately many people have problems with challenging themselves and pushing past the envelope on what they think is safe. A seven step process for getting out of your comfort zone, to find success in life and what is a comfort zone. let's start by defining the term comfort zone and how this concept can hold back many people. A comfort zone is a self-imposed boundary that a person will refuse to push past doing so often fills this person with nervousness and anxiety. For instance let's say you just started a new sales job probably there are certain aspects of this job that you feel comfortable doing like, talking to individual co-workers or clients. On the other hand, the idea of cold calling fills you with anxiety. Basically you feel uncomfortable whenever you have to reach out to a stranger and start the sales process. It's really easy to fall into the trap of never pushing your comfort zone.  Unfortunately this often prevents you from true success and happiness in life so let's talk about the seven step process for getting out of your comfort zone.

  Step Number One

Get information: Anxiety usually comes from a fear of the unknown, usually we imagine the worst case scenario of what could happen when we push past the boundaries of what makes us feel safe, so the first step of breaking through your comfort zone is to first educate yourself. Your goal here is to find out about whatever skill or activity you're pursuing. Talk to people who've done the same thing. Read books on the subject or even watch you tube videos related to the subject. Information is power and the more you know about something, the less scary and more powerful you will be. If you want to become an expert salesperson then your number one goal is to become comfortable with cold calling so you'll talk to top sales people and learn what they did to overcome this obstacle. Then you'll educate yourself about the process and the strategies that other people have used.

 Step Number Two

Have a plan:  After educating yourself create a step-by-step plan for how you'll take action on the lessons you just learned, in this plan create benchmarks and milestones that will help you. Work through this process, these are many goals that put you one step closer to pushing past. Your comfort zone further more identify the key challenges you'll face and what you'll do to overcome them. Once you learn how to master the cold calling process sit down and create a plan for overcoming this limitation perhaps you would start with warm leaves and then work your way up to cold calling prospects that are considered dead leads.

 Step Number Three

Hold yourself accountable: Accountability is another key to breaking through your comfort zone so tell your friends, family or even strangers about your goals or you can even find an accountability partner or form a mastermind group. Accountability is an important step because the people in your life will keep you on track you want them to be there to give you that nudge as you're pushing your boundaries. They'll make it hard for you to quit because you know you'll look foolish if you do exam tell people about your goal to become a master salesperson. Make a public declaration that you're committing to making at least 20 calls a day, do this often enough and your friends and family will start to encourage your journey to success.

 Step Number Four

Take baby steps: Breaking out of your comfort zone starts with the first step, once you have a plan in place focus on the next action that helps you make progress on your goal. Also taking baby steps is a great way to desensitize yourself from the feelings of anxiety. You're not trying to become an overnight success, instead you're steadily pushing the boundaries of your comfort levels and getting experience on the next skill. You're trying to build example. First practice your sales pitch on friends and family, then call the warm leads who are ready to buy. Finally work on those dead leads who even challenge experienced salespeople.

 Step Number Five

Take aggressive action on your comfort zone: To really blast through your comfort zone, try an aggressive challenge this is a rapid fire approach where you force yourself to do a lot of something that makes you scared the idea here is you're shocking the system into becoming comfortable. You won't have time to think about your fear, instead you'll be so busy pushing your boundaries that you forget about what used to make. You scared example, an aggressive challenge for your sales job would be to call 100 plus prospects in the next few days. You don't think during this process, you just do it if a person is rude or hangs up then you immediately move on to dial the next number.

 Step Number Six

Remain positive: There will be times when you experience a negative outcome. Something will shake your confidence and make you feel scared. The trick is to not let this obstacle prevent you from blasting past. Just recognize that you will have negative outcomes. It's a natural part of the process. Don't allow negativity to creep into your mind. Remind yourself that it's going to happen. In fact you should recognize that you're actually being given feedback about. How you can do something better, example with cold calling, there is a large number of rejections. People will hang up they're going to be rude and some might even threaten you. Just think of these rejections as an important part of the sales process. Then tell yourself next is you move on to another sales call

 Step Number Seven

Keep expanding your comfort zone: Never stop expanding your comfort zone, even if you arrive at your stated goal. It's important to keep pushing those boundaries, look for new challenges, find opportunities that your old self would have never considered, like teaching a class on the subject that once filled you with fear.  When you finally get comfortable with cold calling, look for more challenging experiences. Perhaps you'll mentor a younger sales person who is having problems with this area or maybe you identify another key area in your job and focus on mastering that skill. So there you have it a seven step process for getting out of your comfort zone. Breaking out of your comfort zone gives you more opportunity in life as long as you don't let anxiety prevent you from doing what you truly want. So attack your fears and push the boundaries on what makes you feel comfortable.