When I started blogging, I decided to keep my article length between 300-500 words. I got comfortable writing articles of that length. I would decide the topic and the flow, and churn out just the number of words required to make my ideal article length. Some time later, I started to write articles for clients through online writing platforms. Every week I had to write 2 articles of 1500 words each. It was not easy, I struggled, but I did it. I stretched beyond what I thought was the comfort zone. Over a period of time, I got comfortable writing articles of 1500 word length. By stretching beyond the comfort zone, I expanded it. Now, the 500 word articles that I have to write for my personal blog seem like a breeze.

I took up a walking challenge – 4 miles everyday. I was fine walking that distance. Some time later, I volunteered to walk 7 miles every day with my workout buddy. Since I wanted to do it to support him, I went ahead with the challenge. It was difficult, but since we were doing it together, I managed to do it for a month. Now, I do anywhere between 4 to 7 miles everyday and it doesn’t bother me. By stretching beyond the comfort zone, I expanded it.

I make a to-do list every morning. But, I found it difficult to tick off the activities in the list that required me to spend more than a couple of hours at a stretch. Some time later, I enrolled for an examination that required me to put in 3-4 hours of study every day ( at a stretch) for almost 50 days. It was not easy and I was exhausted. I stretched beyond what I thought was the comfort zone, for some time. Once the examination was over, even the activities that required a bulk of time at a stretch seem like a breeze. By stretching beyond the comfort zone, I expanded it.

Some lessons that I learnt from the above mentioned incidents are:

• It is okay for us to like to do things within our comfort zone.
• But, we don’t have to define our comfort zone. It is an elastic zone and it is important to keep stretching it from time to time so we can expand it.
• We are all capable of so much more than we think we are.

We all know how our body responds to regular stretching. Touching the toe without bending the knees, butterfly pose, warrior pose or a downward dog pose, we get better at each of them when we don’t just settle down within our comfort zone. By stretching a little beyond it, we find new comfort zones.

We have all learnt in our hight school chemistry classes about how gas molecules behave inside a constrained space. The molecules exert a lot of pressure on each other and the pressure inside the constrained space is very high. The moment the space expands ( with a little push or heat), the gas molecules are more relaxed and the pressure decreases.

We behave in a similar manner inside our constrained comfort zones. So much of potential trapped inside a make-believe compartment that we encase ourselves in. With a little push/heat, we can all achieve so much more than we think we can.

In fact all of us do it in our lives. By acknowledging it and giving ourselves the due credit, we motivate ourselves to keep doing it.

Would love to hear from you about your stories of stretching beyond. So share them in the comments below.

Image by lesia_design from Pixabay

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