Beyond Your Familiarity Zone

If you have developed a habit of staying local, the very idea of reaching for new horizons may fill you with dread.  This is because your “comfort zone” could more accurately be labelled your “Familiarity Zone”, the territory you have travelled so often and for long that you are able to anticipate with great accuracy almost every twist and turn of the road. 

The sense of certainty we draw from being able to predict our future in this way can be very reassuring, creating a feeling of safety, security and control.  We are like the ancient mariners of the past, guiding our journey using a detailed map of what is known, and with everything beyond the 'known' labelled “There Be Dragons!”  Over time it becomes more and more tempting to stay right where we are, trading our dreams for the 'golden handcuffs' of what we have already acquired, doing what we know how to do, and never straying beyond the boundaries of our familiar locality.  But here’s the catch, and it’s a big one: 

The very pattern we use in order to feel safe in the moment,
is in fact the key source of our vulnerability in life.

As we approach the edge of our Familiarity Zone, the fear kicks in.  The Back Seat Driver inside your head says “Stop!  Don’t go any further! Who knows what could happen?!”  And if we listen and retreat, a new boundary has just been created, a new line we will not cross, a ‘fence within a fence’. Over time, because we do not cross into this boundary zone, we lose the skills and self-confidence in that area we once had; a new “edge” is created and our Familiarity Zone shrinks accordingly. And the life we are living shrinks with it.

But it doesn’t need to be that way.  After all, how did your Familiarity Zone come into being in the first place?  It formed and grew because you approached many situations in your early life which were unfamiliar to you with an attitude of curiosity and willingness to experiment!  You knew that, in order to thrive, you needed to develop certain skills, knowledge, and personal qualities – and you willingly embraced the experiences which afforded you the opportunity to grow and learn.  It’s not that you weren’t afraid; it’s simply that you were willing to, as Susan Jeffers puts it “feel the fear and do it anyway”.  Courage is not the absence of fear; it’s the awareness in the moment that something else is more important to you and the willingness to keep moving.

So today, challenge yourself to do at least one thing differently, or perhaps even to attempt something you've never done before.  You can choose anything at all – speaking to a stranger in a queue, speaking up in a meeting, trying a new food at meal time, trading your evening television / web surfing for an after-dinner stroll.  You’ll know an opportunity has presented itself when the discomfort or inertia kicks in and you find yourself instinctively pulling back to your old routine.  Make it a daily habit to 'pursue the new' and watch your Familiarity Zone expand as you do.  Break free, and become the Explorer you were always meant to be!

"You cannot discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore."  Andre Gide

Comments

[Malik Mirza]

This is so true that we cannot go to the new land without losing the site of old ones - the question is how to do it?

The fear of unknown keeps us far from reaching our potential and we keep on doing what we are doing in our comfort zone.

It is also true that we need to break existing pattern but i would love to read more on how to do it?

regards

Malik Mirza
http://wisdomfrombooks.com

[red bottom heel]

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Nice, and thanks for sharing this info with us.Good Luck!