Alyceum

Igniting Leaders, Inspiring Revolutions

flow

Break out of your comfort zone to improve your confidence

by

Have you ever done something that has surprised you? Perhaps you met with a mentor that you’d been hoping to talk to. Or presented a speech for the first time. Maybe you took on a project that’s a bit out of your job description? And you realized that you pushed the boundaries and moved out of your comfort zone?

Ahh comfort zones – they are warm and cushy. And as creatures of comfort, we love sitting in these pockets. But does it challenge us, help us grow, and improve our confidence? Short answer, no. One of the most effective ways to improve your self-confidence is to regularly push yourself out of your comfort zone.

In the book, The Tools, psychotherapists Phil Stutz and Barry Michels share research-backed strategies for people to overcome the internal barriers holding them back from success. These practical steps allow anyone to reach their full potential.

Tool #1 – Reversal of desire

The first tool in the book is the Reversal of Desire. It explains that your areas of growth lie just outside of your comfort zone. Yes that’s right, just outside of your comfort zone!

Your comfort zone feels great because it’s a state where your brain perceives very little risk. You’re in a familiar, safe situation. Changing habits, learning new skills, trying new things, and other self-improvement activities are all unfamiliar. You have to get out of your comfort zone to do them.

Stepping outside your comfort zone is stressful, but research shows that our brains need to feel slight to moderate anxiety to improve. Psychologists refer to this as “optimal anxiety” — the level of stress that compels you to take action.

Deadlines are helpful for understanding this. If you’re like most people and you’re given six weeks to do a project, initially you’re not worried at all. You feel like you have a ton of time and don’t push yourself to be optimally productive for the first couple of weeks. However, once you’re a week or two away, the stress of potentially not meeting the deadline becomes a weight on your shoulders that pushes you to excel despite tiredness and any other barriers you face.

Be strategic about your comfort zone!

The key is to be strategic about how and when you step outside your comfort zone, ensuring that your anxiety does not overwhelm you. For example, if you’re terrified of public speaking, don’t start by volunteering to speak at a big community event. Instead, start with small groups to build your confidence and work your way up.

It’s like a muscle. The more you push your boundaries, the easier the optimal anxiety will feel to you. It’s like you will broaden the boundaries of your own comfort zone.

This feeling of nervousness brings on our sense of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who wrote the book, Flow. He describes ‘flow’ as a mental state of complete absorption in the current experience. When we are fully engaged and challenged by a task.

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Here’s a challenge (or two) for you

Write down 10 things that challenge you or make you feel fearful. Public speaking? Getting feedback? Introducing yourself to new people? Choose one of these areas to focus on. Brainstorm a range of activities to step out of your comfort zone and practice them in small but consistent ways. Remember your areas of growth lie just outside of your comfort zone! Try ten ways to practice this challenge – yes, not just once, but ten! Repetition is the only way you’re going to move outside your comfort zone to take on these challenging activities.

Moving out of your comfort zone doesn’t always have to be work related either – you could listen to unfamiliar music, read a magazine that you would never normally pick up, try a different hobby with a friend, go to a different restaurant. Get into the habit of pushing your areas of comfort. Reflect on what you learn about yourself in the process.

Final words

Don’t let the fears in your head stop you from trying new things and stepping up in your growth. Take the smallest steps forward and you might just surprise yourself!

Now over to you: What was the last thing you did to get out of your comfort zone?

Get this Free Guide: 6 POWERFUL SECRETS TO FIND YOUR HIGHEST PURPOSE IN LIFE

The world needs more purpose-driven people. But where do you start?

This inspiring guide will give you powerful insights to find and refine your own purpose in life.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Finding your Flow at Work

by

Why do some people dread their work and others find it a source of motivation and energy in their life? With a little investigating about what made people happy at work, I came across a study by Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin and Schwartz that found three common ways people saw their work.

It was either a:

Job: not a positive part of your life, something that gained financial rewards only and not enjoyment or fulfilment.

Career: where there was not only financial gain but also some career advancement within their organisation too, or

Calling: where people are motivated to work not only for the financial or career advancement gain but they viewed their work as fulfilling and socially useful to the world.

How do you see your work? Would you describe it as your calling? And what causes people to view it in such ways?

Now, you might think that some jobs may be more in line with being a calling than others. For example, surely being a teacher or an international aid worker would always be a ‘calling’ compared to being a factory worker or a cleaner!

Well actually, apparently not!

All jobs can be someone’s calling

The researchers found there would be all three dispositions in most industries. So how can that be? How could someone view a job as a cleaner, for example, as a calling? Well, therein lies the secret, it really all depends on how we view things.

In a similar study, Wrzeniewski and Dutton interviewed a range of hospital cleaners, some who saw their work as a calling compared to others who saw it as a job. So what was the difference? The employees who saw their work as a calling did the following things:
• broadened their formal job boundaries to include additional tasks such as interacting with patients, bringing flowers to brighten the day of staff or showing visitors around.
• timed their work to be the most efficient.
• saw the bigger picture of the work they were doing e.g. helping patients get better.

The study went on to describe other examples in a whole range of industries including hairdressing, engineering, nursing, information technology and hospitality, demonstrating no matter what your industry is, how you view your work will have a strong effect on our work satisfaction.

It’s similar to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who in his book, Flow, explores how people reach flow (described as an optimal state of experience in their work) by working on goal directed activities that challenge our skills and expertise.

Let’s unpack this a bit…

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described flow as an activity that you are “so immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity that we lose sense of space and time” or effortless concentration and enjoyment!

The key components to reach flow were clear goals, real time feedback and feeling challenged enough based on your current skills and expertise.

So if you’re keen to step into flow, here are some starting points:

1. Consider the broader impact of your work and connect to this as the purpose of your work. What is your calling? Connect your key strengths with your purpose or calling. Really connect with this intrinsic source of motivation.
2. Stretch yourself by finding challenges that push your knowledge and expertise. What development activities will challenge and excite you? Think about your biggest fears and how you can overcome them. How can you push yourself out of your comfort zone?
3. Find flow activities outside of work. Put your phone away and find activities and connections which make you lose track of time. Get outside into nature and go for a hike or a walk along the beach. Spend time with people and try a new activity like dancing or rock climbing. The sky is the limit!

Work is such a big part of our lives and despite whatever circumstances you have to deal with at work, you can reframe your view of work to create meaning and possibly live a happier life as a result.

This is my challenge to you: How can you view and act as if your work was your calling? Let’s start the conversation here!

What's your value proposition for a board?

POSITION YOURSELF AS AN ASSET
THE ALYCEUM BOARD RESUME TEMPLATE
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.