Is your comfort zone limiting you?

When I was fourteen I was told about an expedition to Africa that was going to happen in two years’ time where the group would live and work in a remote rural village taking hospital supplies over from the UK, and helping to build a track that a Land Rover could drive on, from the village to the nearest road. The expedition was five weeks long and would involve quite a lot of travelling taking in much of Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania and Kenya, and included climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I needed to raise £1500 to be a part of it, which, for a fourteen year old, was daunting.

I worked hard to get the money, I became entrepreneurial, but without boundaries; on the one hand I was approaching the rich and famous for sponsorship, and on the other I was collecting and selling horse manure to make money. With the work, and the blagging and with some help from my mum and dad I finally got enough money to fly to Africa, with a few quid spending money.

Not that we really needed lots of spending money, the people in the areas that we found ourselves in were far more interested in swapping their wares for our Western branded clothing. I bought a watch in Nairobi in exchange for a pair of Nike socks that were a) fake, b) had been worn for around three weeks without washing them, and c) not mine. When that watch broke two days later I swapped it for a Bob Marley tape from an arm that came in through the window of the bus I was on when we stopped in traffic, to play in my genuine ‘Panasoniac’ tape player that I had acquired from a man in the market in exchange for a ‘No Fear’ T-shirt. When my Bob Marley tape got boring I attempted to swap it for a spear. No amount of haggling would get this spear for anything less than my favorite hat (and the tape). I still have that spear, it reminds me of a great adventure…I don’t miss the hat.

I loved being out there, some of the more remote towns we went to could be seen as scary places, but by being adaptive, rolling with the punches and taking your cues from the people and the situation meant that you could thrive very easily, even at this young age.

But it wasn’t always that easy, and I didn’t always love it – my African Adventure was a real eye opener, I found myself in lots of situations that I didn’t like, frightened me, and were well out of my depth. But the longer I spent in those situations, the more learning agile I became, and it set me up for life:

Day one in Africa I mistakenly handed over seven US dollars for a can of coke instead of seven shillings, I realised my error and tried to get the money back. The guy, saying nothing, looked at me with eyes that quite clearly told me “I don’t have your seven dollars, and if you want to try and accuse me of stealing it, I will kill you in your sleep”. I decided to write that off as a learning experience and scurried off for something to eat.

On the way to the restaurant I was offered cigarettes and alcohol, when I declined I was offered cocaine and heroin, and then when I declined further I was offered a prostitute. At the age of 16 this actually scared me a little and by the time I got to the restaurant, I didn’t really fancy anything to eat. Partly because of the shock of what had just been offered to me but partly because I didn’t understand the menu. That was until I came across something called ‘Mixed Grill’. I understood that; sausages, bacon, maybe a steak, and it was homely. When it arrived though, it was not that. If you can imagine a blackened pile of mushed up muddy fish, that has then been eaten and regurgitated at least three times, with a selection of tentacles of unknown origin perched upon the top, that is half way to explaining what it was. Intrepidly I chewed on the tentacles, and nervously consumed the muddy fish pile. I then went back to the hostel we were staying at and very quickly regretted my consumption decision.

When the first waves of nausea hit me I ran to the toilet in the hostel I was staying at, as I approached the bowl, an enormous insect was sat on the rim that appeared to have too many legs and more armor than a Challenger tank. I ran to the next toilet which was occupied by a very large, very strange looking green lizard, so I ran to the final toilet in the hostel which was smashed up by vandals. I took my chances with the insect and after winning my battle with the King Kong of cockroaches, continued to be very ill for two straight days.

I learned from those experiences and moved on, I didn’t order ‘Mixed Grill’, I became more money savvy, I didn’t let scary questions scare me, I asked more questions, I became more assertive. I realised that no-one bothers you if you march through the town with purpose…I was learning from previous experiences and performing much better in new situations.

I think that if you find yourself in a situation you do not like because it is uncomfortable or it is difficult or it is scary it is often very easy to withdraw. Sometimes this is for safety reasons, and that is fine, but nine times out of ten it is because a comfort boundary has been broken. If you withdraw you will likely not get back on that horse again, but if you brave through it you will, in the end find comfort, solace, and even love for that situation in the future. You will find those situations much easier to deal with and even look forward to those situations.

My Dad always told me to scare myself at least once per day. Whilst that parenting advice may be a little extreme I do suggest you put yourself out of your comfort zone as much as you can because each time you do it, you grow enormously.