Thinking about how we learn and grow, I heard a great quote this week ‘Growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse.’
It’s true, if you remain in your comfort zone, you’re limiting your opportunities to learn and grow.
However, stepping out of your comfort zone takes confidence. And if you step out of your comfort zone and it doesn’t quite go to plan then you might learn, but your confidence can take a knock.
And when our confidence feels a bit shaky, we tend to want to stick to what we know. We shy away from asking for feedback which could in fact accelerate our learning. We don’t want to ask for feedback because we don’t feel our confidence can handle anything negative. Even when we know that asking for feedback is the best thing we can do because it will help us continue to learn and grow.
My confidence felt a bit shaky last week (I know I help other people with their confidence, but it doesn’t mean I’m immune to confidence dips).
I was feeling a bit wobbly and I put off looking at a feedback survey because I didn’t feel robust enough to deal with anything that wasn’t constructive. This week I summoned up the courage to look. There was some great feedback! It was really helpful. It would have been just the tonic I needed the previous week to help put my confidence back on a firm footing. But I was too scared of getting bad feedback to look.
So, here’s some food for thought.
- Look after yourself and your confidence every day. For practical tips see my ebook on how to have confidence at work.
- Think about the progress you want to make. What goals do you have? What do you want to achieve? Why are they important?
- What fears are holding you back and keeping you stuck right now?
- What things can you do to help keep those fears in check?
- Remember that growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse. Next time you get that uncomfortable feeling, rather than feeling fearful and retreating to your comfort zone, have a go as reframing is as a signal that you’re learning and growing and keep going.
I help people build their confidence, get comfortable with uncomfortable and get unstuck in a range of ways. You can work with me one to one, join a mastermind group or training programme or become a member in my membership community the Lucidity Network.
If you’d like to find out more about how I can help you – book a chat with me here.