For some reason, I made this semester a semester full of new things. Not just new things, but things that shove me so far out of my comfort zone I literally squeak out of discomfort.
Most of my discomfort comes from this ugly fear I have. The fear of failure. It’s torturous.
I used to be afraid of bananas. That was unpleasant, but at least avoidable. Situations with the possibility of failure on my behalf – not so avoidable. So I decided to try to get over that fear by taking classes that make me cringe. Jazz, Voice, Improv. Three areas I find myself in huge bouts of discomfort because the failure levels are so, so high.
Before this semester, I had a very big comfort bubble and I liked it. A lot. I had English and History and Psych because those are all things I know I am good at and can pass with beautiful grades. All while balancing life and reading and everything.
Now I am totally out of that comfort zone of the known and the conquered. I am standing on multiple precipices wondering where exactly this is going to end.
The thing about this huge (really huge in the Voice area) jump for me, is that now I can look back and see all of the times I lived my life by hiding in this silly little comfort zones I had built up. I knew comfort zones existed. I had to coax multiple friends out of theirs on multiple occasions. It’s just what I do. I like to go around helping people to smash down their walls built out of fear and then smile as they enjoy everything they now have because of those huge steps.
I just didn’t know I had those same tendencies.
I’m an introvert, in that I need my space and time alone at times, but sometimes I can be really super outgoing. Not only that, but if I have my mind set on something, that something will happen. I took an acting class in middle school. The moment the teacher said that I had potential, I began to look into how exactly to go about acting. The next thing I knew I was in New York City on my way to an audition, then I had a manager and all that sort of stuff. I was one of two freshman in my high school’s play. Even though I never wrote anything besides obligatory assignments in school, as soon as someone said I should start writing, I started (and never stopped!). At my youth group I would get people into groups to pray. I never shied away from contradicting a teacher. Those are all very non-comfort zone actions. Or so I thought.
Then I realized. Why was I able to jump into those areas so quickly? Because someone, whoever he or she was, had told me I could, that I was able to, that the likelihood of failure was slim because they had faith in me. That happened with acting, with writing, with leading a group, however small. There was a sense of security that cradled me in its palm and carried me to those otherwise probably pretty scary places.
That sense of security wasn’t there in other areas. Like college and singing and anything to do with the future. It’s not that no one said anything encouraging, it was that no one said, “Here, this is a new comfort zone, you’ll do fine here.” Instead, it was a very general, “Whatever you do, you’ll do fine.” Then add on a big helping of expectations and I freaked out and hid behind every single comfort zone I could think of.
My comfort zones weren’t bad. Family, reading, working out, school (though no challenging classes). In fact, I would say all of those are actually relatively good comfort zones. And there’s nothing wrong with retreating to comfort zones when life is super scary. I needed at least one semester still here, at my house, not having to worry about super huge financial burdens or leaving people I love. My comfort zones, well, comforted me when I needed some stability in my life.
But they were dangerous. I winded up just hiding behind them, not visiting them while I needed to. I put up shields and started to resist any change. There was nothing even slightly good about a girl who had been headstrong and, honestly, reckless because she trusted herself, suddenly hiding away and not trying anything new because it was too out of her comfort zone.
Those comfort zones, that had been so good at first, shut me down. They shut down my life and my dreams and who I was.
I’m still fighting with the urge to run back to them, away from everything that might even hint at failure or push me too over the edge from everything I’ve known. But that is why stepping out of my comfort zone is also exhilarating. I’m now in a musical – that never happened before – and I’m not quite so scared of singing in front of people who I’m not extremely close knit with.
My comfort zones and I are still good friends. When I’m scared we like to hold hands, but I’m not clinging to them anymore.
Autumn Unleashed 