The Element of Getting Out of Our Comfort Zone and Its Hope for Experiencing More of What Life Has to Offer

As an SPM consultant, I’ve learned to live with uncertainty.

I do not know where my next assignment is going to take me.

I do not know how long it is going to last.

I do not know what platform it is going to be on – Excel, Xactly or Varicent.

I do not know who I am going to work with, what to expect, what skill or personality tests await me, and what resources I will need to draw upon.

Every assignment is a new role, with new challenges and new opportunities.

Every assignment is unique, and by its uniqueness, forces me out of my comfort zone, and into trying new things and experiencing more of what the SPM space and life has to offer me.

Do you want to try your hand at new things?

Do you want to experience more of what life has to offer you?

Then you will have to give up what you currently do.

And you will have to take a bold, scary step which will get you out of your comfort zone.

Look for a bold new idea – one that will make you leave the shore and set sail for uncharted territory.

And then take the plunge.

Like I did when I decided to leave HTA and set up my own creative shop; or when I left India for America to start life all over again; or when I started this blog; or when I quit my job to become an SPM consultant.

It was very scary to quit my job and decide to become a consultant.

I did not know whether I would pull it off.

But I am so glad I took the plunge.

It gave me a chance to try my hand at new things and expand my horizons.

Today, as a result of that decision, I have all of this under my belt:

Implementations

Commission Models

Systems Testing

UAT Testing

Process Documentation

Project Management

White Papers

Training

Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

Now that I have done so much more in the SPM space, I realize my previous conceptions of myself were so limited and so narrow.

I did not know it at the time, but I was capable of a lot more.

This is what you too will discover for yourself when you set out on your own brave new adventure.

When the opportunity to lead is presented to you, you will find out you are a leader, when the opportunity to communicate is presented to you, you will find out you are a communicator, when the opportunity to be a change agent is presented to you, you will find out you are a change agent, when the opportunity to create new ideas is presented to you, you will find out you are an ideas generator, and so on and so on.

You will be a shape-shifter and you will rise to many different occasions.

Dan Stevens says, “The comfort zone is the great enemy to creativity; moving beyond it necessitates intuition, which in turn configures new perspectives and conquers fears.”

I was so scared when I started Purple Patch.

But as Stevens says, my intuition would come to my aid to help me solve problems.

I remember one of these problems was being terrified of broaching the subject of money to my clients.

But then I had a brainwave. I could write out what I was going to say to my clients, and practice saying these words. I did this until I became comfortable discussing money with my clients.

Every time, I had something tricky to deal with, I could rely on my intuition to help me find an answer.

These solutions were not always logical, but they worked.

Manoj Arora says, “Coming out of your comfort zone is tough in the beginning, chaotic in the middle, and awesome in the end...because in the end, it shows you a whole new world!!”

Indeed, in each of my new adventures, I have had to experience “tough beginnings” and “chaotic middles” to get to the “awesome ends”.

As an SPM consultant, times were really rough initially.

It was hard to catch a wind.

And things did not always go well.

But I put one step in front of the other and trudged on.

And I resisted the idea of giving up.

Thanks to my Purple Patch experience, I knew that my lucky break could be just around the next corner.

Or the next.

Or the next.

So I stayed the course.

And I ignored the voice in my head which said, “Minoo, you are out of your element - cut your losses now.”

The naysaying voice in your head will tell you all sorts of things, if you let it.

Every time something goes wrong, it will say, “See, I told you so.  You are making a fool of yourself.”

Ashton Kutcher said, “I'm continually trying to make choices that put me against my own comfort zone. As long as you're uncomfortable, it means you're growing.”

Ashton was willing to be uncomfortable.

When he made the choice to replace Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men.

When he made the choice to play Steve Jobs in the movie Jobs.

He was willing to get out of his comfort zone and take on scary, uncomfortable roles which audiences believed were beyond him.

Are you prepared to be like Ashton?

Are you willing to take on an uncomfortable role that people believe is beyond you?

Yes?

That’s great.

You should never second-guess yourself.

You should never think to yourself you are not good enough to do this or to do that.

You should never pigeonhole yourself or typecast yourself by saying, “I am not this, I am not that.”

These are just excuses to stay in your comfort zone.

Imagine if Michael Angelo had said, “Painting is not my thing. I am a sculptor, not a painter.” We wouldn’t have had the magnificent painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The tendency to pigeonhole ourselves can be a barrier to our growth.

My first career was in advertising copy.

Because of all my years doing nothing but writing, I came to pigeonhole myself as a “words person”. Whenever anyone talked numbers to me, my eyes would glaze over, and I would say, “I am a words person, not a numbers person”

But necessity and opportunity, and Laura H’s belief in me, made me take up my first job as a commissions analyst, and I never looked back.

Thanks to putting paid to the notion that “numbers were not my thing”, I was able to support myself and my daughter, working with large sets of numbers day in and day out.

Every day people change course and do well in new fields.

I have a friend in Australia. Her husband got a Masters degree in agricultural science and spent more than a decade as a horticulturist and landscaper in India.  Then he got a stint in Australia to work on the landscaping for a big expo in Sydney. It was a temporary stint, so it ended when the expo came to an end.  My friend’s husband wanted to stay in Australia, but he could not find work in his field. At this point, he could have told himself “I should just go back to India and ask for my old landscaping job at West End Hotel.”  But he didn’t let his education, training and experience in the ag field become an obstacle to his desire to remain in Australia. He decided to change course. Bravely, he put all his successes in the ag field behind him, and retrained to be a school teacher. He got his teaching credential and became a math teacher at a private high school, where he has been for the last 20 years. He was able to stay in Australia and provide a good life for his wife and his 3 children, as a result of his courageous decision to switch tracks.

I have another friend who changed course, not once, but twice in her life. She graduated from UVC College in Bangalore with a civil engineering degree.  She then changed course by taking up a job as a recruiter at a tech company in Bangalore.  When she moved to America, she changed course again by getting into real estate. She is so successful as a realtor, I tease her and say, “You are a future Donald Trump”. People are surprised when they learn her journey to becoming a realtor started with a degree in civil engineering.

These are two stories of people who, by not pigeonholing themselves, and being willing to get out of their comfort zones, created success for themselves in entirely new fields.

Ziad K Abdelnour says “The best way to develop people is to constantly get them out of their comfort zone.”

When SPI invited me to join their Xactly implementations team, and work on the Trepp, Splunk , Fusion and Lynda implementations, it got me out of my comfort zone.

When Salesforce Inc contracted me to do Xactly systems testing, it got me out of my comfort zone.

When White Hat asked me to develop a commission model for them, it got me out of my comfort zone.

When Spectrumbiz tech sent me for Varicent training, and deputed me to various companies to work on the Varicent platform, it got me out of my comfort zone.

When Epicor, Varian Medical and Paypal signed me on as a transition commissions analyst, and let me write their process documentation, it got me out of my comfort zone.

Brian Tracy says, “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

Most of us would like to grow, but we don’t want the awkward and uncomfortable feelings that come with it.

So we say to ourselves “I am fine with this”.

We are afraid of giving up the comfort and stability of what we have, even if it is eating up our soul.

Are you tired of being trapped in a mental prison of your own making?

Well then, you know what you have to do.

Take a bold, scary step which will get you out of your comfort zone.

Here are the steps again…..

Step 1 – Say yes.

Step 2 – Take the plunge.

Step 3 – Keep at it. Resist the temptation to abandon ship, even if, the going is tough, and the pickings are slim initially.

I promise you - your perseverance will pay off.

I will end with a quote by Steve Jobs, “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl –Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay, Ananda, Subhakar and Uday for your comments on Facebook, and thanks to the rest of you for your votes.  Much appreciated…thanks for keeping me going.