Comfort zones are mental spaces where people feel safe and comfortable. Staying within them can hinder personal growth, but stepping out of them can lead to new ideas and opportunities for development. External factors can also push people out of their comfort zones.
A comfort zone is usually defined as the areas of life where people feel most comfortable and can be considered a mental space rather than a physical one. Obviously, the physical aspects of comfort can influence where a person will feel comfortable, but usually this is because these physical things are interpreted by the brain as safe. For example, a person’s comfort zone might include defining how comfortable it is to sit on the comfortable sofa at home, and that person might feel distinctly uncomfortable if they have to do something else, such as attend a party at someone else’s house instead of being at home and hang out on the sofa. This event could push a person out of his “zone”.
Much of the reason comfort zones are discussed is because they become a reliable predictor of how people will behave or respond to situations and can be seen as a stagnant element in people’s lives. Staying within a comfort zone that doesn’t allow for mental expansion or consideration of new ideas means people will remain relatively the same throughout their lives. External factors can contribute more to the removal of zone barriers. Major tragedies or life changes can push people to change. It could be said of things like the September 11, 2001 attacks on American soil that all Americans were drawn away from the comfortable belief that America was somehow safe from terrorism, and this contributed to the way Americans would interpreted any events that followed and even how he would interpret the US Constitution differently to get back to a comfort zone where these attacks could not occur.
Deliberately stepping out of a comfort zone is an opportunity for personal growth and shouldn’t be caused by drastic or difficult events. College-going students often find that they are asked to look at new ideas and interpretations, and these can prompt the student to mentally expand zones and evaluate things in new ways. Leaving the comfort of home also changes perceptions of comfort zones, and students learn that they must redefine the space they mentally consider “home.” Some may be extremely relieved when they can actually make a home visit, especially during the early years of school when a new comfort zone hasn’t been fully established.
Indeed, during the years of growth and development, children and then young adults are constantly asked to expand their areas, to take on new ideas, to analyze things in a more complex way and to interpret their world in an increasingly way. What many people find, however, is that while the definition of a comfort zone is expected to expand in young people, once these “growth” phases are over, people may stagnate. They may refuse to move or think more of ideas other than their own definitions of comfort.
Personal development books often focus on this problem of learning to go beyond defined zones to continue personal growth. Ultimately, mental comfort can be an enemy that prevents people from continuing on a path of change. However, those who accept stepping out of their defined zones can have a life of learning and development ahead of them.
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