I’ve found that there is no growth in your comfort zone. If you want to grow, expand, improve, become great or even just good, you must get out of that safe place. When a mother eagle realizes it’s time for the eaglet to start flying, she throws it out of the nest. The eaglet probably thinks that it’s mother is suddenly is trying to kill it. It falls and just before it hits bottom the eagle swoops down an catches it and brings it back to the nest only to throw it out again. The mother knows that that eaglet will never learn to fly if it stays in the nest. So the mother throws the eaglet out of the comfort of the nest so it may someday soar like an Eagle should!
On the other end of a spectrum is the turkey. A turkey that is raised for consumption is put in a cage where they can’t fly and are feed too much, too often and it becomes a fat grounded bird in a comfort zone. If that bird were allowed to fly it would be much leaner and obviously not very tender on that Thanksgiving platter.
My greatest growth was when I jumped out of the nest. I’ve gone to tournaments on my own, in strange towns trusting on the notion that it would give me growth. I’ve learned the most when I challenged myself. I became friends with people from Ohio because I traveled to Ohio and competed. I became friends with people in Philadelphia, Altoona, West Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and many other states and cities because I got out of my nest, out of my comfort zone and went to tournaments, seminars or any kind of karate event there is. I’ve visited, trained, taught, learned and shared at and with many other schools and karate professionals. I had a set of beliefs when I earned my black belt and have often learned, expanded and sometimes totally destroyed some of my set of beliefs by getting out of my comfort zone. I learned how to win but more importantly I learned how to lose.
If you want to learn to win, you must first lose. If you lose and figure out why then you have grown! If you complain that hey I got cheated then you believe you have nothing to learn, so you stay in your comfort zone.
Your comfort zone is a warm cozy place to stay, just like the dojo. If you never go outside the dojo then whatever you learn is all that you learn. There are many lessons to be learned out there.
So in essence, I’m saying get off your butt, get busy, get out of your house, get out of the video, TV and game world, get out of the dojo and get out of your comfort zone and start working on you.
Get out of that turkey cage and soar like an eagle!
You can’t find greatness in your comfort zone.
