Remember the last time you watched a baby learning to crawl or a toddler learning to walk? Or kids at a playground playing on new equipment? They are not just willing but anxious to explore anything new. They follow the lead of other kids, try new tricks, and genuinely challenge themselves to do more, be more, and learn more. That’s because kids operate outside their comfort zone all the time.

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “comfortable” as: free from stress or tension; free from vexation or doubts.

It defines the word “uncomfortable” as: causing discomfort or annoyance; feeling discomfort; feeling uneasy.

The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary defines the term “comfort zone” as: the level at which one functions with ease and familiarity.

We can infer, then, that operating in an “un-comfort” zone would be the level at which we function with dis-ease and unfamiliarity. That means our actions and our behaviors will feel awkward, foreign, clumsy, and inept. Each time we “step out” we’re going to feel like a child learning to walk.

My daughter and I talk about this all the time – that the first time you attempt something, no matter what it is, will always feel strange and scary. She has come to know that the first time is always the most difficult and that things get easier after that, so just making it through the first attempt is a triumph to be celebrated. You don’t have to be “good” at something the first time, you just have to get through it.

If you are doing that every single day – doing something new and unfamiliar – your success will likely come very quickly.

Do those feelings ever go away? Yes, and no. If you operate in an un-comfort zone long enough it begins to feel comfortable. You expand the borders of what feels safe. Successful people just keep expanding the limits of what feels uncomfortable. As your actions, behaviors, tasks, and systems begin to feel under your control, step out into a new one. Keep the cycle of risk-taking active and alive.

The only time you or your business will truly grow is when you are taking risks. If your desire is to be enormously successful, get “comfortable” with operating in your un-comfort zone.

Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!

P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/

Connect with Ann…

You might also like...

• Being Bold
• Playing to Win!

Choice gives you power. Once you recognize that you get to choose everything about your future, you will gain enormous power over your life. But too many people will never take that step – never acknowledge that they are the architects of their life and their business. It’s much too easy to just blame someone or something else for their apparent inability to become a success.

Successful people aren’t that way by accident. They didn’t just happen to fall into it. They chose it. Strategically.

If you knew, truly knew, that the only thing standing between you and that audacious dream of yours was your willingness to choose, you would stop all the complaining and sobbing and hanging on to your story about why it’s all just so difficult, and you’d get on with the business of being successful.

Successful people are not the ones telling you how hard it is, are they?

The ones telling you it can’t be done are those who aren’t doing it. They are attached to their identity as a person who struggles, who carries on in the face of insurmountable odds, who take on too much and crumple under the pressure because they are addicted to the attention they get for the struggle.

You can choose today, right now, to let all that go.

You can choose to stop seeking credit for all you’ve been through and start seeking the personal satisfaction that only comes with accomplishment.

You can choose to stop wallowing in your need to be validated for your suffering.

You can choose to release your white-knuckled grip on your need for sympathy and validation from others and start doing the things successful people do.

They choose a goal (how much, by when).
They determine what it will take to reach that goal.
Then they go do that.

They do not wait for permission.
They do not look for affirmation from others.
They don’t waste their time allowing drama to infect their life.
And they do not seek credit for trying.

You can be enormously, abundantly successful or you can be a martyr but you can’t do both. Choose wisely.

Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!

P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/

Connect with Ann…

You might also like...

• High Achievers
• What are you waiting for?
• Playing to Win!

You are in complete control of the life you create.
You create your destiny, your success, your failure, and your level of wealth.

If you disagree, you are in the habit of giving power to your circumstances or to other people and, therefore, you play the role of a victim. To play that role, a person would:

• Blame another person.
• Justify what happened. (Blame the circumstances)
• Experience shame. (Blame themself, but not learn from their mistake)
• Complain.

In all four cases, the person does not grow. If we all “get something” from the behavior we choose, what on earth would a person get out of blaming, justifying, feeling ashamed, or complaining?

The answer is, attention.

Attention may feel good in the moment, but it is an insidious trap – one which will cause you to never attain the riches you deserve. Why? Because you must rely on other people to get attention and that means you give up your power. So you can be a victim or you can be wealthy but you can’t be both.

Growth, which comes from your ability to learn from everything that happens to you, is pivotal to your ability to attain wealth. In every circumstance you must recognize how you “got here” and take personal responsibility for your role in every, single thing that happens to you. Everything.

This is a tough mental shift if you have formed the habit of giving your power away. But let’s face it, victim thinking will only keep you where you are now. Once you embrace the fact that you are completely autonomous, you will move toward millions.

Absorbing the idea that only you have the power to create your own wealth goes far beyond positive affirmations and bolstering yourself up with motivational talks and music. It is a fundamental way of thinking. It literally strips away the blanket of excuses that keep you comfortably average. It means you step into a place that declares,

I am it. It’s all me. The cavalry isn’t coming over the mountain. Prince Charming isn’t coming to kiss me and wake me up out of a coma. My financial future, rich or poor, depends entirely on me. Only I can generate my own money.

Oh, and if you insist on relying on your spouse for your family’s income, you may do just fine, but you forfeit your right to generate millions. Which you can do. And you should do. Because you can do far more good in the world as a millionaire than you ever could “just getting by.”

Think of it like this. Someone else can’t workout for you.
Someone else can’t eat or not eat for you.
Someone else can’t sleep for you.
Someone else can’t blame, justify, feel shame, or complain for you.
And someone else can’t take personal responsibility for your level of wealth. It’s all you.

So today, right now, declare that you are in control and you generate your level of wealth. Then ask yourself the following questions to everything that happens:

• What was my role in how this turned out?
• What can I learn from this?
• What will I do differently in the future?
• How can I turn this into something profitable?
• What is the most critical step to take in moving forward from here?

Take Charge!
Ann Vertel

You might also like...

• Getting Out of a Rut
• Doing What Does NOT Come Easily
• Lead with Your Strengths