Beyond the Comfort Zone

Welcome to the Charged Light. This is Brendan Burchard. Let's talk about this ridiculous concept of your comfort zone. I call it a ridiculous concept because it doesn't matter. So we better address it because I know for many of people listening, that's counterintuitive. We're so interested in our own comfort and, and our own ease and what makes us feel good. And we like to also talk about personal development as this big thing of getting beyond our comfort zones. But I just wanna say I think it's an irrelevant conversation. Let me share with you why in three easy ideas. Number one, your comfort zone is just not something that's important. Because if you have a mission in life, you have a dream in life, you have a love in life, you have something that's important to you in life. Your comfort zone should never be even something that you consider, frankly, you should ask what is necessary for me to show up and to serve with excellence in that area, regardless of what my comfort is. If you've heard me talk about this before, I've kind of got this opinion about the strengths based movement. You know, it's like we're all supposed to do our strengths and just follow our strengths and only do things that really amplify or focus on our strengths. And I go, that's just not real. That's not real life. If you have a big mission or purpose or dream and it's beyond your comfort zone, which is really what they call your strengths now, right? Do your strengths. Do your strengths. I'm like, hold on. What should be important is the dream. And your dream or your purpose or your mission should never be made to bow down to your limited human strengths. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if that was the case. This video right here, I was terrified of video. I didn't like video. I sucked at video. I wasn't a good communicator. But I didn't say, well, I guess I can't do video because that's not my natural strengths. I said, what's the mission? Serve people, help people, inspire people. Well, then I'd better develop that into a skill. Not something that comes naturally or easy or automatically or. I was innately born with, look, I believe that we're all born with lots of goodness in us, but. But life throws curve balls. Life, the ambition of being alive, helps us dream. And if you've been given a dream, don't discount that because you're not good enough yet. Develop yourself. Weaponize yourself. Teach yourself to be so good at something that is necessary to serve in the area of your dream that now you never even think about your comfort zones. I rarely think about what's comfortable. This morning, as we were literally eating lunch with my team, Travis and Jess, I was saying how, you know, I'm starting to shoot some videos where I walk around with a camera on a selfie stick and how awkward it makes me, but that doesn't matter to me. I didn't say, well, it makes me awkward, so I'm going to stop. I said, you know, I'm getting used to this because I'm going to get better and better and better at it. Because the mission is to serve more people in that way where they can see what's going on in my life. And so I don't think it's important at all whether I'm comfortable with with it or not. What's necessary to serve the mission is the question, not what's easy for me, what makes me feel good, or what I have innate abilities because I was born to do that. Lots of people think that, well, I was born to do this one thing. And then they turn 20, and then they turn 30, and then they turn 40, and then they turn 50, and they realize, you know what, what you thought was important at 10, 15, 20, and 30 is, isn't as important. Sometimes 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, sometimes the thing you thought was your whole life's purpose and goal in your 30s switches in your 40s, and you need to develop new skill sets. If you haven't found that to be true yet, I bet with a little bit more maturity and higher ambitions and aims, you'll find that to be true. Your comfort zone is irrelevant. What matters is what are you trying to do with your life, how are you trying to contribute, and how do you grow into that, regardless of what you're good at, regardless of what's comfortable or easy? I think I hit that one strong enough. Second big idea instead of comfort zones, I tell people, is just, you know what? If you can't agree with my first point, then let's just jump into what to do. And that is learn to consistently express to the world what you think, what you desire, what you really need, what you really want to achieve, and what your dreams are beyond what's possible for you now. You know, never limit your vision for your future based on your current capabilities or concerns or stresses. And what I mean by that is, right now we live in a world where a lot of people, they do have a dream beyond their comfort zones. They do have something that they want to achieve, but they never tell anybody about it because they're fearful that they'll look stupid or they sound stupid or people won't support them. And I'm here to tell you, it doesn't matter if people support you, and it doesn't matter if people cheer you on along the way. Much of my career, people thought I was crazy. They're like, why are you doing this? You look too young, you sound too young. What are you trying to use this Internet for? I mean, people were making fun of me most of my early career, and I bet they're even doing it in the comments of the video you're watching right now. It's okay. I'm not going to limit the expression of who I am, but what I think or what I desire of life based on whether or not other people will be comfortable with it or myself. So I encourage you. Ask yourself this question. Have you been honest in fully expressing your thoughts, your feelings, your needs, and your dreams with your boyfriend, with your girlfriend, with your husband, your wife, with your team, with the people that you work with? I mean, do people even really know you? Because sometimes what makes us feel uncomfortable is to avoid difficult conversations. What makes us feel comfortable is making sure everyone accepts us. What makes us feel comfortable is belonging. And I think those are all great things. But I also think we have to ask what's real and to convey that and to communicate that. If you read my book, the Motivation Manifesto, I say that the main drive of humankind is the pursuit of personal freedom. Personal freedom, being I want to fully express who I really am authentically, without trying to force it or without trying to comply with everybody else. And the desire to chase the things that are important to me, to follow my dreams, my own path, not everybody else's path. That's personal freedom. And you'll never have personal freedom unless you start expressing more of who you are to everybody, regardless of whether or not you find it comfortable. And then I would say the last piece that always comes to my mind is maybe just a little bit more of imagery for you. The third thing I would say is imagine a conversation with your future self in that. Let's imagine that the you of 20 years from now shows up at your doorstep and that you is stronger than smarter, wiser, wealthier, healthier, happier, and that you shows up at your door and it looks at your life, looks at where you live, what you do for a career, what you're giving, how you're showing up, how you're treating other people, what you're after in life. So the you of the future looks at your whole life in totality today, and it looks you in the eye. And if that future you was going to give you advice what to stop, what to start on, what a more courageous action would be, what's the first thing they would tell you to be or do to be more courageous? If they looked at your life and they said, okay, I see everything going on here, Brendan. I see how you treat your family, your friends. I see. I see what you're chasing after. I see what you want to give in this life. Hmm. You know what? I think you could do this. What would that courageous advice be for you? What would your future self tell you to do? What would be something courageous for you to start right now that your future self wants you to do? You already know the answer inside. You already know what you could do right now to be more courageous in your life. I say do it. Forget about the comfort zone. Find what would just be courage. What comes up for you. And stop asking, does my courage fit in my comfort? No, Just say, well, what's courageous? Go take three actions towards it today or this week. Just start moving forward. And you know what? You'll start living a more courageous life. And the more you live a courageous life, the less you worry about your comfort zones and the more you live what we call the charged life. Hey, my friend, it's Brendan. I hope you enjoyed this this episode. Do me two favors. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that you continue to get updates every time I release new training for you. And number two, if you would like to get ahead a little faster in life, what I like to do is give you my 10 steps to achieving anything 10 times faster. So if you have a big goal, a big dream, a big mission in life, and you just like to achieve it faster, what would you need to do? You know, this is exactly what I keep next to my computer or next to my bed. And every time I have a big dream, a big goal, I open it up and I kind of use this as my checklist to get ahead faster. Because you and I both know if you're going to be more effective or more productive or you are going to achieve your goals and your dreams faster, you're going to have to switch your perspective a little bit on achievement itself. You're going to have to adopt new thinking patterns and habits. You're going to have to have new daily rituals and habits. And your entire approach to learning and skill development must be better. So in order to help you do that, go to brendan.com 10x that's Brendan B R E N D O n.com 10x and you can download this guide for free. Just tell me your name and email. I'm happy to email that to you for free. For free. The same guide I use to achieve any goal or dream faster. Thanks for tuning in. Until I see you next time. Go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference today.