How Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone Can Improve Your Career

One of the best things you can perhaps do for your career is step out of your comfort zone. Yet doing this is easier said than done: when you have gotten extremely good at what you do, you can typically create positive results even with little effort, like you are on autopilot mode.

It can be difficult trying to step out of your comfort zone. After all, as humans, we’re wired to expect the worst out of the unexpected as a means of self-preservation and survival. Because your mind is wired to keep you safe, you avoid the unknown and the unpredictable. In this case, it’s moving out of the familiar. What if you don’t do well, or even fail?

Yet remember that these thoughts likely stem from resistance to change — we’re creatures of habit, after all. So while stepping outside of your comfort zone can be scary, it does come with various benefits, including your growth as a person.

When you choose growth, it can often be an uncomfortable process because of so many unknown elements. That said, being able to find the right support so you can muster the courage to do something different is essential.

What Does Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone Mean?

In a nutshell, stepping out of your comfort zone means escaping the familiar and jumping into the unknown, such as trying a new skill or a new role. The great thing about this is that over time, this new thing becomes part of your comfort zone. After all, change is the only thing constant — but when you open yourself to new possibilities, you begin to learn, adapt, and grow. This allows you to familiarise yourself with this new skill and master it over time.

When you do this, you adopt what is called a growth mindset. When you have a growth mindset, this means you believe skills and talents can be learned and developed. Compare this to people with fixed mindsets, who tend to limit their prospects because they automatically turn unfamiliar opportunities down and settle with the familiar. While they may be good at what they do, they can learn to do so much more.

If you have a growth mindset, that means you have an open mind — and you believe that you have more to offer the world when given the chance. This drive allows them to be go-getters but stay humble at the same time, especially when it comes to things that they don’t know yet. While they may not have the answers to everything, there is nothing that can’t be taught – making them more open to learning and changing. 

These people who equip themselves with a growth mindset are those who are most open to stepping out of their comfort zones. They believe the glass is half-full, not empty.

These traits are especially important in these times when industries and organisations change quickly. New industry trends and even technological shifts force companies to evolve and grow. Before this happens, stepping out of your comfort zone as early as now will allow you to adopt new skills and capabilities to stay ahead of the times.

Why You Should Step out of Your Comfort Zone

Here are some of the reasons you should move away from the familiar and take a chance at what’s out there.

You give yourself the chance to grow

Staying within your lane can feel safe and secure. After all, this is something you know, like the back of your hand, with little room for mistakes. Stepping outside of your comfort zone, on the other hand, opens you up to errors.

However, failures can be treated as lessons depending on how you see them. Each lesson offers you the chance to learn and improve. This is why giving yourself a chance to grow and evolve can be a powerful thing. 

When you don’t step outside your comfort zone, you close yourself to the opportunity of learning new things. You eventually struggle to gain new experiences and skills or even meet new people and make new connections. These often lead to incredible and memorable opportunities for growth.

You can build your confidence

People with high growth mindsets also typically have high self-esteem or self-image of themselves. Although stepping out of your comfort zone can be scary, it can also help build your confidence step by step, especially when you realise that the things you were afraid of were not so scary after all.

Boosting your confidence can have a great positive impact on different areas of your life. When you step out of your comfort zone, that’s when you get to know yourself better and realise the capabilities you didn’t know you had. Facing your fears and trying new things – and conquering them – can put a spring in your step and lets you become open to trying even newer things and experiences.

There is no single way to build confidence, as everyone is unique. What works for one person may not work for another in developing that confidence. Instead, focus on your own goals: what are skills or experiences that you have always wanted to try but never had a chance to? Zero in on your own goals.

You enhance your creativity

Moving away from your comfort zone is an effective and great idea, especially if you feel that you have been stuck in a rut for a while. Having creative juices flow freely is a great asset to have in work and in your other endeavours, and having creative activities can even provide a healthy outlet for your emotions.

Sometimes, all it takes for your creativity to get reignited is dabbling in a new activity or experience. Because everything is new to you, you don’t fall into the trap of using your “muscle memory” or old patterns of doing things; you are forced to get creative and think things through. Plus, doing new things may help you realise that you enjoy certain interests or endeavours you never would have thought you would.

Future-proofing your career

Although staying out of your comfort zone is necessary for your personal growth, it also doesn’t hurt to do it for the sake of future-proofing and protecting your own career. Technological changes and trends are accelerating industry changes, and job roles can change at any minute. Adopting new skills or even trying other roles can help equip you in the event that your position evolves into a hybrid role, or you’re expected to add new capabilities to your skillset.

Preparing for economic changes

If there’s anything the pandemic has taught us, anything can happen — and occupational changes can happen any minute. Economic crunches such as inflation or a recession can affect your employment status, and it’s best to be prepared. How? By upskilling so you can move laterally to a different role, or even re-skilling altogether so you can anticipate industry changes based on demands.

Ways to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Here’s where you can start if you want to start thinking out of the box and moving out of your comfort zone.

Say yes to things you would normally say no to.

By this, we don’t mean people-pleasing and saying yes to every request indiscriminately; this is simply about agreeing to do tasks you normally would not have done or are out of your strengths. Try out that new hobby your friend has encouraged you to do, or drag yourself to a party or gathering you would typically turn down — you may be surprised at what you discover.

Don’t think, just do.

As long as you’re not hurting anyone, holding yourself back from trying new things tends to be a mind-over-matter situation. Avoid overthinking and being too negative, so you don’t inhibit yourself from doing something new, even if it seems outrageous.

Don’t be afraid of failure.

Those who fear failure get too hung up on the results. Yet if you’re so afraid to fail, you end up doing nothing at all. Meanwhile, those who try — and fail — always walk away with a new lesson because they treat every failure as a learning experience. Moving out of your comfort zone means opening yourself up to that possibility. That said, it’s an opportunity to grow.

There are multiple benefits to stepping out of your comfort zone, and each lesson can help you grow not just as a professional, but as an individual. For more expert insights on how to grow your career and stay ahead of the times, check out the Career Resources page. 

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