Your Comfort Zone Is Not Your Danger Zone – Here’s Why

BY: Kristen Butler

Are you tired of constantly being busy and hearing about how everyone else is so busy too? Well, join the club!

Society has become obsessed with the idea that we need to stay busy and live outside of our comfort zone for the sake of progress. But the truth is that the term "comfort zone" has become a dirty little word often used synonymously with concepts like complacency, laziness, inaction, and failure to launch.

I don't know about you, but none of those terms feel very comfortable, do they?

I believe villainizing the comfort zone is not only dangerous, but it is the very reason so many Americans give up on achieving goals or accomplishing their dreams. You're not feeling stuck because you're too comfortable; you feel stuck because you've pushed yourself too far outside your comfort zone, and you don't know any other way.

This might go against everything you've been told, but it's a conversation we need to have because the crusade against the comfort zone has dire consequences on your health, your self-esteem, your relationships, and your ability to achieve your goals. It's time we re-evaluate our definition of this important concept.

The idea that staying inside your comfort zone will hold you back from attaining your dreams became mainstream in 2009 when a business management theorist named Alasdair White published his findings in a paper titled "From Comfort Zone to Performance Management." In this paper, White argued that there is an Optimum Performance Zone in which we perform at our optimum, and then he placed this zone outside of the comfort zone, an assertion that has gone unchallenged since.

The most damaging aspect of our current comfort zone theory – the one I want to challenge and redefine – is this: When you associate success with discomfort, you start to falsely believe that in order to achieve success, you have to feel stress. You start to equate stress with success and guilt with comfort. Eventually, when you feel anxious, you feel like you're doing something, and when you feel safe and comfortable, you start feeling guilty and ashamed.

A recent study found that more than 77% of Americans experience stress levels that adversely affect their health and well-being. This is why countless stress-related illnesses plague us in this country: heart disease, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, asthma, obesity, IBS, hormone imbalances, and so on. The more we push ourselves outside our comfort zones and the longer we live with chronic stress, the more we damage our bodies, minds, and relationships.

I did that for years when working 16-hour days, hustling, and pushing myself into discomfort. For all my efforts, I was rewarded with failed businesses, obesity, debilitating depression, thoughts of suicide, and infertility.

The truth is that pushing yourself outside your comfort zone to pursue success is not sustainable. If it were, we wouldn't live in a country where most people are stressed, sick, broke, and unhappy.

Discomfort creates problems, not solutions. If you doubt this statement, look at your biology. When you feel uncomfortable, you activate your amygdala – the stress center of your brain, which then pushes you into a triggered fight, flight, or freeze response.

Studies show that you cannot think creatively or effectively in this state. You can't make basic connections or solve even simple problems because your entire objective is to survive. How can you create a life that you enjoy from this triggered space? It's very difficult, if not impossible.

In my new book, The Comfort Zone: Create a Life You Really Love with Less Stress and More Flow, I discuss the three Zones of Living. When you push yourself outside your comfort zone, you enter the "survival zone," the zone of overaction. Here, accomplishments are unpredictable and hard and are often accompanied by sacrifices to your well-being and relationships. Hustle culture lives in this zone.

If you keep pushing yourself past this zone into even more discomfort, you'll enter what I call the "complacent zone," the zone of inaction. This is when you feel so uncomfortable that you become overwhelmed and lost. You may not know who you are anymore or why you're doing anything at all. Paralysis sets in, not because you're too comfortable but because you're deeply uncomfortable, fearful, and insecure, which is as far away from comfort as you can get.

Your comfort zone, on the other hand, is the zone of balanced action. When you feel comfortable, you feel safe. When you feel safe, you feel confident. When you’re confident, you can take action that honors your needs and preferences. When you take action that honors you, you feel more enjoyment in your life.

Living inside your comfort zone creates a positive feedback loop that consistently moves you closer to the things, people, and experiences you want. This is the opposite of a danger zone. Instead, it's the only zone that will give you the opportunities to create your biggest, boldest dreams with ease and flow.

When I finally learned to do this, the blessings in my life amplified very quickly. I built a global brand with over 50 million followers on social media, lost half of my body weight, healed my body, had children when I was told I never would build my dream home and lived my purpose.

I did all this without leaving my comfort zone. Instead, I stayed in my comfort zone and expanded from that place. Your comfort zone is where your dreams thrive. It's your growth zone. This new perspective changed my life completely.

If I can do it, you can too!

About the Author:

Kristen Butler is a bestselling author and the CEO of Power of Positivity, a community with over 50M followers globally. She is a leader, writer, and visionary in personal development with a huge heart and captivating authenticity.

She passionately started Power of Positivity in 2009 after completely transforming her life from rock bottom using the power of positive thinking. Kristen was awarded SUCCESS Magazine's Emerging Entrepreneur in 2022.

Find out more about Kristen:

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