I ran into this website called https://spoonfedstudy.com/ where they have this cool graphic on stepping outside your comfort zone. with 3 easy steps to get ahead of 99% of people.
source: The 3 levels of awesome by Spoonfed Study
It's about stepping outside your comfort zone to get ahead in life. found it quite amusing and I'd like to share this super simple progressive recipe with you.
It starts with realizing most people aren't doing anything!
Realize that most people aren’t doing anything
Most people spend binge watching Netflix or mindlessly scrolling through Tik Tok. Don’t believe me? At the time of writing, Tik Tok has 148.92 million users in the United States alone. Most people go through life like this: they find a job that allows them to pay the bills, they do the bare minimum, they come home and sit on the couch and watch reruns of Friends while making EVERY excuse for not going to the gym, learning a new language, starting a business or eating a slightly more healthy meal.
Most people are too lazy or too distracted, and it’s no surprise when we live in a day and age where apps are designed, with amazing precision, to give you the right amount of dopamine to keep you glued to your phone.
You’re different.
You are willing to step outside of your comfort zone in order to become a better you.
Let’s look at this three step system.
Go for one small win a day
The concept of a small win is doing an activity that requires minimal effort to complete, but that incredibly, most people are still not willing to do.
as the saying goes “Any journey starts with one step”. Try doing some things that can be easy to start changing your habits. Instead of doom scrolling on Tik Tok, listen to an educational podcast for 15 minutes. Instead of a soft drink, drink water. Spend 15 minutes working on a blog post. Do you live on the second or third floor? take the stairs instead of the elevator.
And if you’re able to track how many days in a row you’re able to have these small wins, do that too. As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, puts it: the satisfaction of knowing you had one small win gives you a small but significant immediate reward. You don’t have to wait 12 months to see the result of going to the gym. That small reward will help keep you disciplined to continue having small wins.
Soon enough, these habits will become second nature to you, and it will be time to move on to step two.
Do one uncomfortable thing a day
One.
Take one step further outside of your comfort zone.
Do something that might cause you a little bit of anxiety.
If you feel uncomfortable reaching out to a potential client. do it anyway! write that email and get that scratched off your list. Maybe you’re uncomfortable talking to strangers. Go ahead and help someone with might seem like they need directions.
Whatever you chose to be your daily uncomfortable thing, remember that most people will not be systematically leveling up their lives like you. So go out there and do it.
And guess what. Even if you decide to stay here, at level 2, you’ll already be doing way for than most people. But if you decide to take one step further outside of the comfort zone, you must learn to embrace pain.
Do one painful thing a day
This is the third and furthest area outside of the comfort zone and yes, it sucks.
But guess what? with life comes pain and in my opinion it’s better to chose what kind of pain you want instead of sitting around and have life choose for you.
Choose, for example, the pain of doing a hard workout session at the the gym. Really put yourself out there and give it your all. And while your suffering, fight those thoughts of how hard it is and why you lost the genetics lottery with those big bones and look at the situation from a different point of view: Pain in the gym is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a sign of growth of your muscles. And the same goes for other forms of pain, they are but another rep in the gym of life.
Embrace pain and take it for what it is. Another opportunity to get stronger, to be a little tougher for when life hands you another scoop of pain.
I had my small win for today by writing this blog post and it feels great!
What about you?
images created using Mid Journey