Living Outside Your Box: The Importance of Stretching Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Whether we realize it or not, God has prepared wonderful things for us, but we have to be open and available to receive ALL that life has for us. Unfortunately, most of us limit our possibilities because we limit ourselves to things that are within our “box” or our comfort zone.

We all have areas in our lives where we operate from within a “box.” Some of us grew up in boxes that, as we matured, we simply never discarded, even when they were no longer comfortable or didn’t fit our current goals.

One of the boxes I grew up on was the “get a good job with benefits” box. My parents understood absolutely nothing about entrepreneurship. His mantra was “get a good job with benefits.” That’s what they knew; that was his box; and that’s what they passed on to me. So starting my own business, or just consulting, was out of my comfort zone.

However, one day, after being unemployed longer than I expected, I had to work up the courage to take a look outside my box and consider entrepreneurship. I’ll be honest with you, starting my own business required a huge expansion of my thinking. It was difficult for me to change some of those entrenched philosophies that I had been raised with. When I took my first steps down the road to building my own business, not a day went by that I didn’t want to run back to “paycheck”; because being an employee was what I knew, it was within my comfort zone.

Reaching for things outside of our box is uncomfortable, if not frightening. I was afraid to start a business, but I also understood that staying inside my “good job with benefits” box would keep me limited. I knew that eventually that cramped space would leave me frustrated and depressed.

It is difficult to get out of our comfort zone, but the reality is that living a dissatisfied life is not easier.
So my questions for you today are, “What box are you living in?”

Are you inside a racial box? Is there someone on your cell phone that doesn’t look like you?

Are you inside a breeding box? Is your philosophy about how you are raising your children based on beliefs that were passed down to you? But what if you’re honest, when you were growing up, you hated and it didn’t really feed you?

Are you in a rut box? When was the last time you tried a new restaurant? made a new friend; did you cook something different?

What box are you operating out of that no longer fits the elements of who you want to be or where you want to go?

If you live inside a cardboard structure that limits you, make a commitment today to get out of your box and learn something new; something that requires you to stretch beyond your comfort zone; something that challenges you and the philosophies you’ve inherited, but will ultimately bring you closer to becoming the person you’d like to be, or living the life you’d love to live.

Take a class; Read a book; talk to some people you may not know well, if you know them at all, but who are doing some of the things you’d like to do. Ask questions; expose oneself because exposure helps eliminate fear; and it is fear that keeps you inside your box.

If you’re not venturing outside of your box to do something you know you should do, to be the person you want to be, or to get where you want to go; then fear is at the root of your inaction. Yes, you with your “bad” self are afraid of something: failure, success, embarrassment, looking stupid, not being good enough… I don’t know what it is, for you, but I can tell you that exposure helps. to eliminate fear.

Do a little soul searching and investigate the root of your inaction: deal with whatever it is that you secretly fear. Then boldly step out of your “box”, so you can receive all that is meant for you and live a limitless life!