Leaving your comfort zone. Probably the most annoying way to get better

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Everyone has their own way of thinking and a well-established way of life. There is nothing wrong with that. But stability in high doses can be more dangerous than it seems.

The comfort zone is the fences inside our brain, on which there are signs: "Here you go - it will be good there, but don't go here - it will be bad here." The comfort zone consists of habits in thinking and, accordingly, in behavior. Everything that is familiar is good and wonderful. Everything that is unusual is universal evil.

We are well fed here too

The habit of getting up at seven, stomping to work by nine, having dinner at a restaurant around the corner, reading a detective at home, then shower and sleep. The same people, the same hacks at work, the same sanatorium resorts in the Krasnodar Territory. Many people live like this for years, cling to daily rituals and call it stability.

We get used to, we merge with our habits. We risk stopping and not moving forward. Do you know what happens when we are not moving forward? We're just dying.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you have to move!

Albert Einstein

To change something, of course, is scary. It may not work. They can laugh. They can offend. Dismiss in the end. Boredom once possessed me too. The work is excellent, the salary cannot be better, I live on my own, I have everything. And something is not right. Sucks into the whirlpool "home-work-home". And the feeling does not leave that the office-rat fate (sorry, if offended anyone) is the worst that could happen to me. And yes, changing something was terribly scary.

How I gave myself a shake

But the human nature dictates its own rules. The fifth point is persistently looking for adventure, and, of course, finds it. The story that happened to me last summer is a classic example of hardcore stepping out of my comfort zone. Moreover, I got into this story solely out of my own stupidity.

Here is how it was

One of my recent hobbies is playing African and Arabic percussion. The school where I study has developed a tradition of arranging drum intensives every summer. We are going for a week somewhere in warm regions, such as the Crimea, and playing drums for days on end, with breaks for food and sleep. I have already visited such an intensive once, and it was very cool. Cheerfully, fervently, drums thundered throughout the village. In the evenings, neighbors came to our light, whom we did not allow to sleep;) In short, I decided that the next intensive session would not do without me.

Time goes by, summer is approaching and the drumming event. Suddenly the question sounds: “Does anyone know how to cook? We need a cook.” And then something came over me. Until then, only my father had tried my cooking. The fact that he survived suddenly gave him confidence. “I can,” I say. What prompted me and what kind of organ, excluding the head, I thought, I cannot explain. But what was said cannot be returned, the verdict was signed and I was formalized as a cook for an intensive course. In general, the idea seemed to me pretty good. I already wanted to go as a kind of volunteer in order to bring benefits to society and save money. And here is a whole cook. Cool!

Sweet ignorance

You know, it seemed that everything is pretty simple. Well, I got up, made breakfast, cleaned, washed. Then she made some soup. The most common, only ten times more. There will be food, a huge saucepan too. There will be assistants. Yes, for nefig to do. Even during the breaks I will have time to do swims in the warm August sea. It is not known how this whole story would have ended if not for the intuition of the organizers. At the last moment, they still reinsured themselves and took one guy named Oleg to the intensive course. He turned out to be a professional chef. I immediately mentally christened him Oleg "Trushny Cook".

Harsh reality

Rise at 6.00. A blessed coolness still blows, but an hour and a half later a heavy, lazy heat is pressing on the village. And all these one and a half hours I have been running around the kitchen like a lynx wounded in the seat. Put the compote to cook. Put the porridge to boil. Cut bread, cut fruit and dried fruits, put everything nicely on a plate. Do not forget anything! Move tables, clean everything, cover everything. Lay out the plates, lay out forks, spoons, napkins. Take out porridge, muesli, dried fruits, dumplings and honey. Heat the milk.

Meanwhile, the people are catching up. The very first ones rake all the most delicious, trample muesli, drink cool milk, and completely destroy nuts and dried dried apricots. Sleepers come and resent: “Eh, where is all our food? Lena, is there still a raisin? Bring me, please. And the milk can still be warmed up, you want very lukewarm. And Lena runs around, takes out a raisin, of which there is already a handful left, but needs to be stretched for another couple of days. Milk, when it is so necessary, of course, ran out. To get another pack, you need to wake up the old mistress, who is the only one who keeps the keys to EVERYTHING in this cottage. While, hating myself, I stomp with the hostess for milk, breakfast time is steadily running out. Master classes begin, other residents of the cottage are approaching the kitchen. They spread our products apart to make room and swear loudly at the pile of dirty dishes that have already accumulated in the sink.

After breakfast, everything was not fun. Wash all pots, plates, mugs, forks, spoons. Remove tables, fold dried fruits. Wipe the floor. Go to the room to lie down. Crawl to the beach, do a swim. Run back to the kitchen to get ready for dinner. Peel vegetables, wait for Oleg "Trushny Povar", make lunch together.

Oleg "Trushny Povar" looks through me. If I do something wrong, she yells good obscenities. I feel that I deserve it and obediently keep silent. I don't cut the potatoes this way, you need to peel the onions like this, cut the garlic, pressing the knife sideways. Forget about the scapula! Everything needs to be mixed, holding a heavy frying pan with one hand in weight and tossing the contents.

The climax was my attempt to cut the tomatoes into cubes. Cursing everything in the world, I wielded a knife until I slashed it on my finger with the blade. Oleg, not noticing anything, came to read a notation on the correct cutting of tomatoes. And so I stand and listen to my mentor, while blood spreads over the beautiful light tiles, like a spring flood. For some reason, instead of running to the room and bandaging the wound, I try to cover the puddle with my foot. The cries of the neighbors who entered, kicked me out of the coma and kicked me out for bandaging. In general, a complete psychedelic.

In the evening, the same ritual as at lunch. Cook, clean, wash. Then finally lick the entire kitchen and make preparations for tomorrow. Each such day ends at two o'clock in the morning. And get up again at six in the morning. Every evening - mixed feelings. Fatigue, anger, shame. My whole body hurts, my lower back aches, my legs fall off. I don't want either the sea, the sun, or the kitchen, all the more so. I want to bury myself in the pillow and sleep exactly until the evening of the next day.

In the morning, in the reflection of the mirror, an emaciated, pale face with dirty shags sticking out in different directions is looking at me. Spending most of the time in the kitchen, I experienced a persistent aversion to food and felt hungry only in the late afternoon. For 10 minutes of swimming, the sun did not take me. Again, there is no time to wash my head. And so I rush to the kitchen again.

Total

After six days, I sit and think about everything that happened. In general, I am enchantingly disgraced. She let people down, infuriated Oleg "Trushny Cook" and was just tired as a bastard.

On the other side:

Kitchen life hacks for all occasions

Strict, but fair, Oleg "Trushny Povar" taught me a bunch of useful things in a week, from how to roll a lemon correctly, so that later it is easy to squeeze juice, and ending with various techniques for cutting vegetables.

Compassionate neighbors in the cottage, seeing how I suffer with mountains of dirty dishes, taught me the correct technology for washing a large number of dishes, which I still use today.

Labor hardening

I have absolutely lost the reluctance to everyday life. I haven’t plowed so cruelly yet. All the remnants of prejudice about working with my hands have disappeared, after that week I am not afraid of anything in the field of household chores.

Smart, kind and bright thoughts

I was finally and irrevocably convinced that any professional in his field is a producer of human happiness. This was exactly what Oleg "Trushny Povar" was, who saved my butt and fed us amazingly all six days. I realized that if you want to feel happy yourself, you must first make others happy.

And other nice bonuses

Upon arrival in Kiev, I quit my stupid office-rat job in order to dig out a really correct vector of development. Would I have been able to learn and experience everything that I have learned and experienced if I had not volunteered to be a chef recklessly? Most likely no.

Why is it so unpleasant for us to leave our comfort zone?

1. Insufficient experience.
2. Not enough time.
3. Insufficient strength.
4. Not enough habit.
5. Not enough courage.

And why should we still marry her?

1. When we lack experience, but we need to do it right now, immediately and in spite of everything, we begin to learn ten times faster.
2. When we do not have enough time, we throw out all unnecessary things from our heads and get involved in concentrated work in order to be on time.
3. When we do not have enough strength, we are forced to use all the imaginable and inconceivable resources of our body. Like the night before the exam;)
4. When we do not have a habit, we can only develop it.
5. When we lack courage, there is nothing left but to find it.

Warning

I am not a supporter of glazed hypocritical nonsense, so I will explain for those who have not yet understood. Really leaving your comfort zone is hellishly unpleasant. So that it is of high quality, to learn quickly, so that this experience is carved into the subcortex of the brain - this is pain, suffering and humiliation. This is a step into the abyss. That is why many people live their whole lives like boiled flies. They live the same, boring, no action. Because it is unpleasant to radically change something in this life (namely dramatically, and not "I'll paint it purple"). Because it's scary. And it is true.

And therefore for those who are afraid

… hitchhiking instead of a train, invite someone to a movie instead of being afraid that you will be cut off, or go as a cook to the Crimea to feed 20 people, instead of lying benevolently in the sun. Think again.

Consider that hitchhiking is the most versatile way of knowing reality. The fact that a girl who is scared to invite to a movie can make you very happy. And an unsuccessful debut as a cook is the start of something new, unknown and beautiful.

Well, and I wish the readers a dynamic and bright everyday life! What do you think about going out of your comfort zone? Do you have life stories? Tell us.