7 useful skills you can't learn in your comfort zone

1. Do what you want

Doing what you want can be uncomfortable. After all, from childhood we are taught to correlate our desires with those of others and make decisions not always in our favor.

Remember how it was in one Soviet cartoon: “Want to? Will be crossed over! This phrase was adopted by many parents.

When a person is going to say or do something, he often thinks about how they will look at him and what they will say, how they will react, and refuses his “want”. We often ignore our interests in what work to choose, who to be with, and even what to wear. All this is to maintain good relations with others.

Doing what you want is a habit that develops in an uncomfortable environment. Only when you have drowned out other people's expectations can you hear what you yourself want.

There is also an alternative - to stay in your comfort zone. But then make sure that all your desires really belong to you and not to someone else. Otherwise, how can you enjoy performing them?

2. Don't do what you don't want

This skill has a more familiar counterpart - the ability to say no.

As I said above, our actions and desires are often dictated by the desires of others. This can be understood when it comes to close people: sometimes we are ready to do more for them than for ourselves. The problem is that in life we have an average of 5 to 15 really close people (according to anthropologist Robert Dunbar), and we try to please a much larger number.

This is how we maintain our comfort zone. You do not need to stand up for your desires, you do not need to conflict and you do not need to argue. And yet I want to ask: do these actions bring real pleasure?

And if not, is that a fair price for comfort?

3. Speak in front of an audience

There is a theory that fear of performance is one of the innate in humans. From the point of view of the development of society, it symbolizes the performance of a loner in front of a tribe that can expel him. Hence the fear.

Even great orators say that over the years, the excitement never ends. Each time they have to overcome themselves a little, experience discomfort in order to take the first step onto the stage. But this is a step after which euphoria sets in.

Someone who performs in front of an audience often will confirm that the only way to be less afraid is to perform more. You can pose to the audience naked or drink for courage, but the art of speaking in front of others implies an uncomfortable environment. On the other hand, experienced speakers love this discomfort because it is a harbinger of success.

4. Control yourself in conflict

A conflict situation is stressful. A person cannot change anger for mercy with a snap of his fingers. It takes time, and most importantly, practice, to learn how to respond more easily to disputes and disagreements.

That is, you need to get into a conflict in order to understand how to behave in it and not give in to emotions.

The secret is learning to notice triggers that provoke conflict. Each time, note your reactions and make them more and more reasonable.

The more often you do this, the more attentive to yourself you become and the easier it will be for you to adequately respond every next time. As a result, you learn to take advantage of such situations without harming the nerve cells.

As always, you can stay in your comfort zone and avoid conflict and stress. This is really easier in the short term. But over time, your social skills will deteriorate, because you will avoid any quarrel, and trying to understand other people, communicating with them only superficially, will not work. It's like learning to swim on the couch.

5. Be the first

This skill combines several aspects at once. One of the main ones is the ability not to envy or compare oneself with others.

Perhaps someone will object: “But what about the athletes? They constantly compare themselves to each other, trying to outperform their rivals. This is partly true, but not always true for great athletes.

Until May 6, 1954, scientists were convinced that a person cannot run a mile in less than 4 minutes - in any case, he is guaranteed to risk his health. On that day, British runner Roger Bannister broke this record, and in the years after him - dozens of other athletes. Roger competed with himself and therefore was the first.

Competition always makes us uncomfortable, because it requires additional efforts to surpass the previous result and move to the next level. You need to work more efficiently, train more, give your best, and so on.

If the desire to be the first plays an important role for you in the profession, you will inevitably find yourself in an uncomfortable environment. The alternative is to use moderate effort. Unfortunately, they don't make people champions.

6. Talk about your feelings

Talking about feelings means being defenseless and (for most) uncomfortable. On the other hand, frankness remains one of the best ways to prove that we care about this person. In this case, the discomfort raises doubts about the reaction to our frankness. Will they understand us? Will they laugh? Will they ignore it?

We can remain silent, accumulate our emotions, but at some point they will burst out in a stream that cannot be controlled.

Better to learn a little about openness. Yes, through discomfort, but this is more effective than exploding from an overabundance of feelings every time and being buried in an avalanche of stress.

7. Ask for help

When we ask for help, we are essentially admitting that we don’t know something: an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. Some people take this as a sign of stupidity. In practice, the recognition that you do not know something or do not know how is the main condition for development.

The wise Socrates said: "I know that I know nothing." He, like many thinkers and scientists after him, recognized the limitations of his knowledge in order to be open to new things.

Still, admitting your ignorance is stressful. But without this stress, we will be unable to cope with difficulties that cannot be overcome alone. And there are enough of them in the life of any person.

The alternative is to be silent and look for a solution on your own. This can also be an effective approach. But why dig up gold with your hands when you are offered a tool?

It's not for nothing that we associate stress with leaving our comfort zone. Biologically, stress is the body's preparation for action. Rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, filling cells with oxygen, increased concentration. In stress, our body prepares for threats so that we can overcome them.

Each skill in question develops under uncomfortable, stressful conditions. But over time, this inconvenience is replaced by the joy that you live by your desires, achieve better results and communicate more effectively with people.

I think life can be comfortable, but unhappy, or it can allow uncomfortable conditions, but bring more pleasure. And we ourselves decide which option suits us.