How To Grow (Without Leaving Your Comfort Zone)

“You have to get out of your comfort zone!” we are told, from cradle to grave.

When we are young, we are advised (or sometimes more forcefully instructed!) that we have to try new things. In our middle age, we are expected to be the world’s greatest go-getters, afraid of nothing and always pushing limits. And when we are old, people bid us “don’t be such a dinosaur”.

It is assumed, unquestioned, that growth can only occur through hardship and discomfort.

But what if that’s a discomforting lie?

Butler (2023) posited an idea: “We never achieve success faster and with less effort than when we are in our comfort zone”

Her words are an obvious callback to the ideas of Csikszentmihalyi (1970) in the sense of “flow”, in the sense in which that word is used in psychology.

Flow is: when a person is in a state of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment of an activity.

As a necessary truth (i.e: a function of syllogistic logic), the conditions of “in a state of flow” and “outside of one’s comfort zone” cannot overlap.

From there, we can further deduce (again by simple logic) that if flow can be found, and/but cannot be found outside of the comfort zone, then flow can only be found within the comfort zone.

That is indeed comforting, but what about growth?

Imagine you’ve never gone camping in your life, but you want to get outside of your comfort zone, and now’s the time to do it. So, you check out some maps of the Yukon, purchase some camping gear, and off you go into the wilderness. In the event that you survive to report it, you will indeed be able to say “it was not comfortable”.

But, did growth occur? Maybe, but… it’s a folly to say “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” as a reason to pursue such things. Firstly, there’s a high chance it may kill us. Secondly, what doesn’t kill us often leaves us incredibly weakened and vulnerable.

When Hannibal famously took his large army of mostly African mercenaries across the Alps during winter to march on Rome from the other side, he lost most of his men on the way, before proceeding to terrorize Northern Italy convincingly with the small remainder. But! Their hard experience hadn’t made them stronger; it had just removed the weaker soldiers, making the resultant formations harder to break.

All this to say, please do not inflict hardship and discomfort and danger in the hopes it’ll make you stronger; it will probably do the opposite.

But…

If, instead of wilderness trekking in the Yukon…

• You start off with a camper van holiday, then you’ll be taking a fair amount of your comfort with you. In effect, you will be stretching and expanding your comfort zone without leaving it.
• Then maybe another year you might try camping in a tent on a well-catered camping site.
• Later, you might try “roughing it” at a much less well-catered camping site.
• And so on.

Congratulations, you have tried new things and undergone growth, taking your comfort zone with you all the way!

This is more than just “easing yourself into” something

It really is about taking your comfort with you too. If you want to take up running, don’t ask “how can I run just a little bit first” or “how can I make it easier” (well, feel free to ask those things too, but) ask yourself: how can I bring my comfort with me? Comfortable shoes, perhaps, an ergonomic water bottle, shade for your head, maybe.

❝Any fool can rough it, but a good soldier can make himself comfortable in any circumstances❞

~ British Army maxim

This goes for more than just physical stuff, too

If you want to learn a new skill, the initial learning curve can be anxiety-inducing, especially if you are taking a course and worried about keeping up or “not being good enough”.

So, “secretly” study in advance, at your leisure, get yourself a head start. Find a degree of comfort in what you’ve learned so far, and then bring that comfort with you into your entry-level course that is now less intimidating.

Discomfort isn’t a badge of honor (and impedes growth)

Take that extra rest stop on the highway. Bring your favorite coffee with you. Use that walking stick, if it helps.

Whatever it takes to bring your comfort with you, bring it.

Trust us, you’ll get further that way.

There are many personality-typing systems that, with varying degrees of validity*, aim to describe a person’s personality.

*and often pseudoscience:

• sometimes obviously so like astrology
• sometimes dressed up in clinical words like the Meyers-Briggs
• sometimes openly, per “this is not science but you may find it useful to frame things this way”, like the Enneagram

There is currently one kind of personality-typing system (with some minor variations) that is used in the actual field of clinical psychology, specifically under the umbrella of “trait theory”, and that is…

The “Big Five” personality traits

Also called the OCEAN or CANOE model, based on its 5 components:

• openness to experience: inventive/curious rather than consistent/cautious
• conscientiousness: efficient/organized rather than extravagant/careless
• extroversion: outgoing/energetic rather than solitary/reserved
• agreeableness: friendly/compassionate rather than critical/judgmental
• neuroticism: sensitive/nervous rather than resilient/confident

The latter (neuroticism) is not to be confused with neurosis, which is very different and beyond the scope of today’s article.

Note that some of these seem more positive/negative than others at a glance, but really, any of these could be a virtue or a vice depending on specifics or extremity.

For scientific reference, here’s an example paper:

The Big Five Personality Factors and Personal Values

Quick self-assessment

There are of course many lengthy questionnaires for this, but in the interests of expediency:

Take a moment to rate yourself as honestly as you can, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

For example, this writer gives herself: O7, C6, E3, A8, N2 (in other words I’d say I’m fairly open, moderately conscientious, on the reserved side, quite agreeable, and quite resilient)

Now, put your rating aside (in your phone’s notes app is fine, if you hadn’t written it down already) and forget about it for the moment, because we want you to do the next exercise from scratch.

Who would you be, at your best?

Now imagine your perfect idealized self, the best you could ever be, with no constraints.

Take a moment to rate your idealized self’s personality, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.

For example, this writer picks: O9, C10, E5, A8, N1.

Maybe this, or maybe your own idealized self’s personality, will surprise you. That some traits might already be perfect for you already; others might just be nudged a little here or there; maybe there’s some big change you’d like. Chances are you didn’t go for a string of 10s or 1s (though if you did, you do you; there are no wrong answers here as this one is about your preferences).

We become who we practice being

There are some aspects of personality that can naturally change with age. For example:

• confidence/resilience will usually gradually increase with age due to life experience (politely overlook teenagers’ bravado; they are usually a bundle of nerves inside, resulting in the overcompensatory displays of confidence)
• openness to experience may decrease with age, as we can get into a rut of thinking/acting a certain way, and/or simply consciously decide that our position on something is already complete and does not need revision.

But, we can decide for ourselves how to nudge our “Big Five” traits, for example:

1. We can make a point of seeking out new experiences, and considering new ideas, or develop strategies for reining ourselves in
2. We can use systems to improve our organization, or go out of our way to introduce a little well-placed chaos
3. We can “put ourselves out there” socially, or make the decision to decline more social invitations because we simply don’t want to
4. We can make a habit of thinking kindly of others and ourselves, or we can consciously detach ourselves and look on the cynical side more
5. We can build on our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, or lean into uncomfortable emotions

Some of those may provoke a “why would anyone want to…?” response, but the truth is we are all different. An artist and a police officer may have very different goals for who they want to be as a person, for example.

Interventions to change personality can and do work:

A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention

There are many ways to go about “being the change we want to see” in ourselves, and yes there can be a degree of “fake it until you make it” if that works for you, but it doesn’t have to be so. It can also simply be a matter of setting yourself reminders about the things that are most important to you.

Writer’s example: pinned above my digital workspace I have a note from my late beloved, written just under a week before death. The final line reads, “keep being the good person that you are” (on a human level, the whole note is uplifting and soothing to me and makes me smile and remember the love we shared; or to put it in clinical terms, it promotes high agreeableness, low neuroticism).

Other examples could be a daily practice of gratitude (promotes lower neuroticism), or going out of your way to speak to your neighbors (promotes higher extraversion), signing up for a new educational course (promotes higher openness) or downloading a budgeting app (promotes higher conscientiousness).

In short: be the person you want to be, and be that person deliberately, because you can.

Some resources that may help for each of the 5 traits:

1. Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
2. How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex
3. How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
4. Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
5. Building Psychological Resilience (Without Undue Hardship)

Take care!