How do you actually get out of your comfort zone? Every quote online makes it sound easy. It is not.
Shortly after I broke my neck I was on the spinal unit, in a manual chair I could barely push, and they asked me to speak at a fundraiser. I was terrified. I had a bad stutter. I stuttered on every word I said. Then a nurse came down to the ward with a tin, and there was about twelve pounds in it, and something changed. Failure is not the risk. Failure is the learning. The real cost is what you miss by staying put.
One thing to try: Say yes to one thing this week that you would normally talk yourself out of.
In this episode
(1:25) So much change, so much uncertainty
(4:07) Why I got frustrated with people who would not walk through the door
(5:16) The spinal unit and a chair I could hardly push
(6:45) The hour counting down to the talk
(9:02) I stuttered on every single word
(10:06) The tin, and about twelve pounds in it
(12:34) Take the opportunity and learn on the way
(13:45) Failure is fine. Failure is learning
With gratitude to
Farrell, Clint, Chel, Yvonne and Maureen
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
How do you actually get out of your comfort zone?
Every quote online makes it sound like a decision. It is not. And you do not have to leap, which is the part the quotes leave out.
The heart of it
You do not have to be ready. Waiting until you are ready is how people never go.
Failure is not the risk. Failure is the learning.
The real cost is what you miss by staying where you are.
My daughter Kemba played a game called Spyro when she was small, and for weeks she played the same bit. Not a level. The running about before the levels. Jumping in the water, over the bridge, round the field.
I found it maddening. Go through the door. You will get power ups, you will be able to jump higher, you will get somewhere.
I understood exactly what she was not doing. I did not understand why for years. She did not want to get hurt. And when she was ready she went through the door, and it was never my business to decide when that was.
Then my own version, a few weeks after I first got out of bed on the spinal unit. Three of us were asked to talk to about thirty student nurses. I had a bad stutter then and I had never spoken in front of anybody in my life.
Getting into the room was a slow, silent farce. I could push forwards and I could barely turn, so I steered by bumping gently into the back of Alan's chair. Then the three of us turned to face the room one at a time on deep carpet.
I talked about the dangers of diving and I stuttered on nearly every word. I thought it was a disaster.
A couple of hours later somebody came down to the ward and said one of the audience wanted a word. They had had a whip round. About twelve pounds, and they wanted to help me campaign, because they thought what I said was powerful.
It was not polished. It was real, which turns out to be a different currency.
One small thing to try
Take one step rather than the leap. Dip a toe in.
Do not design the whole podcast, record five minutes about something you love. Do not learn how to register a company, have the first conversation. Do not become a good speaker, speak badly once.
Then ask the other question. What have you said no to because you did not believe you could learn the rest on the way?
I have a list. There are people I would love to interview and I do not message them, in case they say yes. Which means I now have to send that email, having said it out loud.
Questions people ask
What if I fail?
Then you have learned something, which is the only way anybody learns anything. Look at anything I made three or four years ago. It is not good. It is why this exists.
Should I push my children out of theirs?
I tried and it did not work. We spend their childhoods telling them to stay safe and then ask why they will not take risks. They go when they are ready, and the readiness is not on your timetable.
Do you still get uncomfortable?
Every episode and every live. Slightly. If I ever get entirely comfortable doing this, it will mean I have stopped learning anything.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
confidence · change · fear
Read the transcript
How do we get out of our comfort zone?
That's one of the most difficult things we'd ever do.
And the only way you hear all these wonderful quotes everywhere
on the Internet about freedom is on the other side of your comfort
zone and this wonderful utopian world.
Just if you could only get out of your comfort zone.
Zone.
What does your com.
What is your comfort zone and how do we get out of it?
I'm Stephen Webb, and this is Stillness in the Storms podcast.
And I help you to get through difficult times and give you a little
piece of inner peace.
Okay, come for a zone.
But just before I start on that, I'd like to say thank you to
my patrons, Farrell, Clint, Cheryl, Yvonne and Maureen.
Thank you guys.
Thank you for supporting what I do.
And if any of you want to become a patron, head over to StephenWeb.com
and there's a link at the top two card Patreon.
Otherwise, thank you for listening to this podcast.
Thank you for tuning in.
How's your week been?
My week has been pretty good.
It's so interesting now.
The world's opening up and just there's so much change and there's
so much frustration and there's so much anger and fear and,
yeah, there's a lot going on this week.
There's a lot of energy.
There's a lot of uncertainty.
And in all this uncertainty, there is this automatic out of our
comfort zone.
This is what we don't like.
We don't like being out of our comfort zone.
So I thought I'd do a podcast about comfort zone and about how
we step out of it and sometimes, sometimes forcing us into
our.
Out of our comfort zone really does help.
But I just want to warn you that I'm not going to be editing
my podcast in the same diligent way as I normally do.
So there's going to be more ums and ums.
There's going to be more gaps and pauses because I don't have time
or the manpower or the means to be able to get it edited.
You know, being paralyzed from then just below the neck and my fingers,
and I've been paralyzed.
It takes me five times longer to do anything an able body can do.
And I've been.
I've been bit conservative on the five times, probably 20 times.
So in order for me to get the podcast out every week, I'm going
to do less editing.
So you are.
You are warned.
You are warned.
But come for a zone.
I was talking on my live today about my daughter.
My daughter kemba.
She's now 23, and she used to play this computer game called Spyro.
And she used to play this same level for months and months and months.
And it wasn't even getting through the level.
It was like a pre level running around.
So you will run around on these little fields and jump in this
water and over this little bridge and you would choose places
to go into to do the levels.
Well, in each one of these levels, there was, like, things you
had to do, people you had to jump on and kill and bosses you had
to take out.
But she wouldn't go in them.
And I was like, really frustrated.
I was like, no, Cam, you've got to go into these levels.
You're never gonna get further.
You'll end up getting power ups and you jump higher and you can
do all these things.
And she's like, no, I'm good.
And I'm like, yeah, but we've watched you play this, this running
around, running, jumping into water and jumping out the same area
for like weeks now.
Please, can we see a different area?
No, I'm good.
Aren't you bored with playing the same thing?
No, I'm good.
And I really couldn't understand it.
I really got quite frustrated and sometimes I got quite like, well,
can be.
You're never going to get anywhere unless you actually just
go through the door.
Go on, just go do it now in front of me.
I'll help you.
And I used to be quite like, yeah, frustrated is the right word.
I don't want to make it any stronger.
Because it wasn't.
It never.
It bothered me, but not too much.
It was just I couldn't sit there and watch her for many, for
very long.
And I now realize why it was okay understanding what she wasn't
doing right or what she should be doing.
I never understood why.
And of course she didn't want Spyro to get hurt.
She didn't want to get hurt.
She didn't want to go through the fear, that feeling of somebody
jumping out.
Now.
Then when she was ready, she took the step.
When she was ready and confident and okay to adventure out,
she took the step.
It wasn't my business to know when she was ready.
And I want to tell you another story.
Shortly after I broke my neck, I was on the spinal unit.
I had just got out of bed a few weeks previous, so I'd learned
to push my chair really quite badly.
It was a manual wheelchair.
It was an NHS one, so it was a good quality because they were our
permanent chairs.
But it was also they Weren't lightweight.
They.
Yeah, they were very much a government issued chair and they
were heavy.
And because I got no triceps and my hands don't work properly,
I could not push the chair in any meaningful way.
I could get the momentum to go forward, but then turning any corner
or turning on the spot was incredibly difficult.
To push one wheel one way and the other wheel the other way was
like really hard.
And it must have been painful for anybody to watch us do it really
slowly.
Well, a group of carers or nurses came to the spinal unit for
the day and myself, Alan and Jason were asked to go in and do
a small speech, a small chat.
I never done anything like this apart from when I was at school
and I wasn't really in any kind of drama class, so standing
out in front of anybody, it was just something I did not do,
apart from telling the odd joke when I was a child in the, I
suppose, greenhouse when we had a barbecue with friends.
But essentially this was something new and I was terrified.
And I can remember the hour came counting down.
What do you want me to talk about?
I said to, like the sister on the ward, well, just talk about what
it's like to be first injured, what it's like to be from your perspective
of breaking your neck and things like that.
It's like, yeah, but, oh, I don't know, I don't know.
Well, in the end I said, I'll do it, I'll brave, I'll do it.
And I would never have done it unless I had two people with me.
So it came to the time and we pushed our wheelchairs up there,
the door open and I was the third in the row.
And pushing ourselves into it was.
It must have been an absolute comedy if it wasn't so painful for
us all.
Completely straight face, completely serious.
Jason goes in first now, Jason.
And his arms were longer than his body, I swear.
And they used to wave in every direction.
If there was ever an orangutan in a wheelchair, that was him.
And then there was Alan next.
Alan was very serious, very subdued.
And then there was me.
I don't know what I was.
I had no idea.
I could.
I could see what they were, but I couldn't see who I was.
And Jason pushed himself in first, joking and like.
And there's me.
And then Alan pushed himself in and there was me banging myself
into the back of his chair because, like, I wanted to get in
as quick as possible, but I did and I.
And I didn't want to be stuck out too far either.
So the balance was basically crashing into the back of his chair,
because once I pushed forward, I couldn't stop.
And I went in there, and I managed to turn around on the really
low shag pile carpet, and I managed to turn and facing.
There's about 30 people.
And I spoke about the dangers of diving, and I was terrified.
It.
I thought it went absolutely terrible.
I. I was sweating.
I was nervous.
I.
Every word I said, I swear I stuttered because I used to have
a terrible stutter.
And then I left, and down on the ward, about 10 minutes later,
I don't know, a couple hours later, I have no idea, really.
One of the nurses come down and said, oh, they would like a word
with you.
I was like, who?
Oh, one of the people in the audience would like a word with you.
I was like, okay.
I said, you have to push me because it's, like, right up there,
and it'll take me, like, 20 minutes to get there.
So the nurse pushed me, and we got up there, and the lady looked
up and says, we would like to help you.
I was like, why?
So were you wanting to do some kind of campaign to stop people breaking
their necks and do some kind of warning?
We'd done a whip around with some money, and we thought what you
said was really powerful.
We thought you were amazing.
I was like.
I thought I was a bloody mess.
It was terrible.
It was, you know, it was so raw.
It was like.
But I guess it was real, you know?
And the.
The point of it is, there was about, I don't know, $18, which would
be about 12 pounds in there, and enabled me.
I can't remember what I'd done with it because it was some months
before when I come home, but that was, like, 27 years ago.
But the point of getting out of your comfort zone is you don't
have to do it all at once.
You don't have to go and jump metaphorically.
You know, your comfort zone is fine for certain situations, but
you don't have to be ready.
You don't have to be so perfect and ready to leave your comfort
zone.
You know, just like Kembra, my daughter with that game.
And just like me in that room, if I'd waited years and years and
years until I was the perfect speaker, I would have done no better.
You know, if Kembra had waited and waited and waited, she would
have done no better on the other sheets because she would not
have known what she was up against.
The thing is, we have to grow our muscle by doing.
We have to leave our comfort zone.
You know, we have to put on a different movie.
If we're a child, we have to stop rewrite, redoing the same day
again and again and again.
And it's really difficult.
It's not easy to do something different.
And this is why in this time of lockdown, in this time of unrest,
we fear discomfort.
You know, the greatest love you can give a child is comfort,
security, love, and safety.
You know, we almost ask our children to stay safe, not to get
out of the comfort zone.
Don't do anything that's going to hurt you when, really.
And then when a child goes out and they do something that hurts
them, we're like, why did you do that?
Why did you climb on that?
So we almost want everybody.
And we get taught not to go out of our comfort zone.
You know, I'm not saying run and jump.
I'm not saying dive off a tall wall into a swimming pool like I
did.
I'm saying go down the road on the push bike that you're not used
to doing.
I'm saying read the book, watch the movie, learn something
different.
If someone's offering you an opportunity, take it and learn along
the way.
If you want to start up a business, you don't need to know
about taxes and all the how to register a business, design a logo.
If you want to do public speaking, you don't have to be a
perfect public speaker.
If you want to do Facebook lives, if you want to start up a
podcast, you don't have to have all the perfect equipment.
You don't have to have the gift of the gap.
You just have to start.
You just have to.
You know, if you want to do a podcast, just record five minutes
talking about your favorite subject.
You don't have to decide your whole podcast all 120 episodes.
The problem is we look so far down the road and we think we cannot
get there, so we don't bother.
Getting out of your comfort zone is not about having the perfect
sharpened sword.
It's about knowing that you're going to learn along the way.
It's about knowing that failure is okay.
Failure is learning.
I can list all the times where I've put out something that's just
terrible.
Look back at my first lives.
Look back at things I was doing three or four years ago.
You know, I was where I was.
And jumping out of their comfort zone has given me more confidence
in recording this podcast.
You know, every podcast, I'm slightly out of my comfort zone.
Every life, I'm slightly out my Comfort zone.
If I get too comfortable, then I'm not learning, I'm not growing.
I know comfort feels good and I know fear feels terrible, but we
should have fear recognize the fear and go, it's okay.
I'm not going to go all the way.
I'm just going to take a step, dip my toe in, so to speak.
You know, that's wisdom.
Dip your toe in, check the depth of the water.
You know, I'm joking about that.
I'm laughing at the time only because I broke my neck in the swimming
pool.
When I dived in, it was the deep end.
It was lit up and it was full of water.
There's so many rumors about my accident over the years.
They're just funny, you know, he must have been drunk.
The pool was empty.
He.
It was the shallow end.
None of those things are true.
What's true is I was a dumbass and I was showing off.
That's the Dhruf.
But that's okay.
When we're younger, we haven't got a defined comfort zone so much
as we have when we're older.
So hopefully my.
A couple of stories have helped you recognize your comfort
zone, recognize the comfort zone in others.
And just think today, how much do you miss out on staying in your
comfort zone?
Where in your life are you just staying in your comfort zone
because it feels good to you?
What things have you said no to that you don't believe you had
the ability or capacity to learn, to be able to grow into that
role?
And there's many things I've said no to and knocked back.
There's, there's people I would like to have on this podcast
as people I would like to interview, but I don't message them
just in case they say yes.
What happens if I message like Richard Rohr and say, come on my
podcast, Brilliant Franciscan Priests.
That would just be amazing conversation.
What would happen if I messaged him and said, would you
come on my podcast?
What would happen if he said yes?
That would mean I'd be out my comfort zone.
I'd have to grow.
And now here's the problem.
I now have to email him and ask him, don't I?
If any of you know Richard Rohr, tell him that I'm trying to
get out of my comfort zone.
I would love for him to come on my podcast.
You know, a genuine, such an open hearted, warm, loving character
taught me so much about the true self, false self, the.
The falling upwards, the first and second half of life.
But yeah, comfort zone, it's hilarious.
So get out of your comfort zone.
Head over to stevenweb.com and click to have a chat with me.
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as a visitor at the moment and you're struggling with finding inner
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I get it.
There's no shame in feeling all those things at the moment.
There's no shame in feeding them anytime.
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