Why stepping outside of your comfort zone is like being in a dystopian novel

The other day I saw a card that read ‘stepping out of your comfort zone has never killed anyone’. At the time, I chuckled and kept on walking. I was on the way home from work and when you’re commuting in London, you don’t really stop, stare and think. (People will stand on you.)

Stepping outside of your comfort zone doesn’t mean auditioning for a Broadway Musical, or walking down your nearest high street stark bollocks naked. Though, if that’s your thing - go for it.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone is more about recognising where your comfort zone is, figuring out how often you step outside of it, and looking at the WHY.

It’s about and deciding that your desire to live life to the full is bigger than coming face to face with your fears. It’s about and seeing how far your potential stretches. It’s about knowing that you may fail, and doing it anyway.

It’s like dystopian novels, where the main character figures out the walls that they thought were built around them to protect them, restrain them.

They’ve become so afraid of what’s outside of the world, that it takes a long time to question the purpose of the wall.

They’re terrified of life outside the walls and it takes a while to see that life beyond the walls gives them more freedom, adventure and ability to be, than the walls that cage them.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone? It's learning that there’s more to life than the box we’ve built for ourselves.

Stepping outside of our comfort zone is about seeing if those wing you've been building for yourself will let you fly.

How discovering multipotentiality felt like coming home

*This post is part of Puttyfest - celebrating the 4 year anniversary of Puttylike* It’s been a year since I learned of the term multipotentiality.

Up until that point, I worried why I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

I didn’t realise that having multiple interests and being good at a multitude of things was even a thing. I thought it was a sure sign that I couldn’t make my mind up as to what on earth I wanted to do.

Feeling like the odd one out

Every one around me seemed to be settled, and had chosen the path they wanted to follow.

But for me, it was another story. I had so many projects whirling around in my head, there were so many things I wanted to try my hand out, and I still can’t think of many things worse than doing the same thing, in the same town, with the same people for the next forty years.

On the outside my life looked good.

On the inside, I was trying to work out whether I would ever be able to stop doing a hundred and three things at once, and if I would ever be able to recover from being perpetually busy.

This was around the time that I was starting to burnout. I looked at my life and couldn’t find much that was right.

Even thought I had landed what I thought would be my dream job, and moved in with my now fiancé, I had no energy, no longer wanted to see friends, and felt completely and utterly lost.

I had aimed for everything society deems acceptable - a stable pay check, a stable relationship and a stable home.

Dreams of achieving all of my goals at once faded with the need to pay my bills and manage my job.

Was this it?

I remember looking at friends who were travelling with envy, and wondering what had led me to the path more travelled.

I felt like I had been given someone else’s life, which was less than the perfect fit.

My anxiety was increasing, I was beyond stressed at work and was going to the doctors every week with a new ailment.

(Just slow down, they said.)

It was around that time that I was signed off work.

In between sleeping, not feeling able to leave the house and googling how to relax, I came across lifestyle design:

The radical idea that you can design your life the way that suits you and fuck the rest.

I stumbled across Puttylike and it was like discovering another world.

MULTIPOTENITALITY WEB

A world where people merged the craziest of interests, were working to build a life that worked for them and were making a difference in their own way. 

Reading about Emilie Wapnick and her movement of Puttypeeps, I felt a deeper calling that my life was about so much more than trying to make ends meet and making everyone around me happy.

It was like finding the missing jigsaw piece to a jigsaw puzzle you didn’t even know it existed.

I finally began to explore the nuances of my personality which had laid dormant under rigid expectations of who I thought I should be.

It wasn’t an easy journey, but by surrounding myself by people who were taking life by the horns, I began to realise that I wasn’t born to do just one thing.

Accepting myself

I began to understand that having such a variety of interests was an asset, and I didn’t need to settle for anything less than setting my soul on fire .

I saw that it’s not just okay to be someone who hasn’t just got one thing, but it’s a gift.

I don’t know where I’d be today if I hadn’t stumbled on a simple word called multi potentiality, or if Emily hadn’t bravely put herself out there in the world like she did,

I would probably be back hiding in my shell, sure I was missing a party somewhere, but with no idea where to look.

I’d be on a different path, that’s for sure.