How many of us are constantly wishing for a change?
Every person we come across wants to improve some aspect of their life. Some want to add and some wish to get rid of things. We all want change as it brings freedom, excitement, newness, hope, faith and belief into our lives. Yet, why does it get so difficult to change? What causes the turbulent rush of emotions when we think of doing something different? Let me try to get us closer to the source of the problem.
Many want to add newness to outshine. It could be starting to read, hitting the gym or earning additional income. While there could be others who think of it the other way round. They want to quit. Be it smoking, excessive sending, consuming junk food and so on. All of these requires an effort and the challenge is to come out of the comfort zone and try something different. But, we all have heard of the comfort zone, yet many are not able to challenge it. Why? That’s simply because its comfortable being in this zone and any immediate change would mean making few adjustments which could be of a discomfort initially. To tackle this, let’s study the comfort zone from a different perspective by breaking it down into two environments. The external and the inner environment.
If we want to start reading we need to surround ourselves with books. We could build a small library at home or visit the public library more often. Keeping books at our eyesight propels us to consider reading more. If we want to lead a healthier lifestyle, we need to get rid of all the junk food that we have at home. Instead, stack the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets with fruits, green veggies, nourishing snacks etc. Want to drink more water, place bottles in every corner of the house. What is it that we are doing? We’ve changed the external environment to match and lead the life we wish to have.
There could be circumstance when we are not able to have any influence on the external environment. Many of us complain about it. Instead, it’s important that we start to believe in ourselves, create our own values which we shall always adhere to, abstain from activities that sickens us and stand strong through all odds. Want to stay healthy and can’t purchase a membership, start using your body weight to exercise. Want to quit smoking, believe that no matter what we will never give in to smoking again. This is what I mean by changing our inner environment. There is not much we can do to influence the external environment but we definitely can find inner ways to tackle the odds and turn it into our favour.
Challenging the comfort zone requires us to step out of the environment we currently are in. Take a plunge into our comfort space, and change it. Success would soon touch our lotus feet.
