How to Stop Worrying – 8 Simple Tips to Help You

by Remez Sasson

What are worries?

These are nagging thoughts about something you fear might happen. If you pay attention to these thoughts, they would grow stronger and attract similar thoughts, and in no time, the fear would grow and occupy your mind and affect your behavior and even your health.

If you allow these thoughts to fill your mind, they would grow stronger, deprive you of peace, and make you unhappy.

Worries start as thoughts, but soon negative emotions get involved.

If you do not stop the worries the moment they start, they turn into a self-perpetuating cycle of negative thoughts, negative mental images and negative emotions.

According to Wikipedia:
“Worry refers to the thoughts, images and emotions of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats. As an emotion it is experienced as anxiety or concern about a real or imagined issue.”

According to Merriam Webster:
“To think about problems or fears: to feel or show fear and concern because you think that something bad has happened or could happen.”

Is it possible to stop worrying?

Yes, you can stop worrying, or at least, eliminate most of your worries.

I would like to offer you a few tips to help you stop worrying. Reading them is great, but practicing what you read is more important.

I would like to ask you a question, what about not creating worries at all, instead of creating them, and then practicing tips to stop them?

Yes, this is possible, but this requires some inner work on your part. Are you ready to invest some time and effort in this worthy goal?

When there is more inner peace, worries will find hard to get into your mind. In this situation, a mental state of no-worries will become natural, and you will not need tips to stop worrying.

A peaceful mind does not create worries. When there is inner peace, worries go away.

Okay, here are a few tips that I hope you will find useful.

How to Stop Worrying

1. It is easier to eliminate worries when they just start, than after they grow stronger. Try to be aware of the thoughts that pass through your mind and when you feel that worries are starting to build up, do one of the following:

• Read an inspiring or funny book.
• Read a few inspiring quotes and think about their meaning. You can find a collection of quotes in the quotes directory here.
• Work out or engage in any kind of sport to take your mind away from the worries and not let them grow.

Get busy with any activity that you love doing. You may, for example, watch a movie, read a book, take a walk or meet friend.

2. Analyze them to find how real they are. Often, they are just unreal fears that create unnecessary stress and anxiety. Often, there is no reality behind them. There is no reason to let them trouble you if they are not real, but only imaginary.

If they are real, instead of worrying, look for ways to deal with their causes. Sometimes, you have to do just a few changes in your life to eliminate their causes.

3. Often, thinking about what is the worst that can happen, if the worries are true, will reveal that it is something not so scary, which you can deal with it. This would make you feel better.

4. Ask yourself, how many of your worries came true. The mind moves from one worry to another. Therefore, many worries do not receive enough attention to grow strong enough affect your life.

5. Do you worry about what people think of you? Can you read their minds and know exactly what they think? No, you don’t, and it is quite possible that they don’t think about you at all, and you just get concerned in vain.

Often, we arrive at the wrong conclusions and wrongly interpret people’s behavior and reactions. This creates unnecessary suffering about things that are not real at all.

6. When you feel weak, hungry or tired, worries arise more easily. Therefore, in these situations, give yourself some rest, eat or drink something and get some sleep. Afterwards, it would be easier to deal with what is troubling you.

7. Stop what you are doing, and ask yourself, “What can I do right now to stop worrying?” Try, even though it night not always easy, to detach yourself from the negative thoughts in your mind. Think of ways that can free your mind, at least temporarily, from these thoughts.

8. I know that meditation is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, it can help you stop worrying and start living a more peaceful life. Simple meditation, for a few minutes can help. Of course, you need to train yourself with meditation for some time, before getting results.

Remember, worries are thoughts, and you can refuse to pay them attention. Your attention give them life and strength, and if you deny them of your attention (which is possible, but not always easy to do) they will grow weaker and leave you.

SOURCE

13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

DIVERSIFY YOUR IDENTITY

By Mark Manson

I don’t watch much TV, but if there were a channel that played Tony Robbins seminars non-stop, I’d watch it like a teenage girl glued to an America’s Next Top Modelmarathon. Say what you want about Robbins (opinions range from him being a complete hack and fraud to him being the second coming of Jesus Christ; my opinion is somewhere in the middle), but his seminars are never dull. The guy knows how to market helping people.

For the uninitiated, Robbins’ seminars have some informal portions where people in the (massive) audience are able to stand up and address their personal issues with Tony one-on-one, in a kind of private counseling session… in front of 2,000 other people. Tony manhandles their emotional worlds, reshaping their realities in front of your eyes, all to thunderous applause. Whether it’s genuine or not, it’s never boring, and it’s usually educational.

(A good friend of mine who is a psychologist and therapist refers to Robbins as the Batman of Psychology — sometimes he has to break the rules and do some unethical things, but it’s always for the greater good.)

In one seminar, a middle-aged man in the audience stood up and confessed that he was suicidal. He then shared his story: he was a finance guy, a very good finance guy. He made a fortune and not only that, but his friends and family members gave him their savings to manage and he made them fortunes as well. His entire life he had been successful and made a lot of people a lot of money.

And then one day he lost it all.

When prodded by Robbins, his reasoning for wanting to kill himself was that his life insurance policy would pay enough to support his wife and children after he was gone, whereas if he stayed alive, his family would be saddled by debt and left broke. When Robbins threw out the obvious point that while his kids would grow up with financial stability, they wouldn’t have a father, the man calmly asserted, “Yes, exactly. That’s the idea.”

What immediately strikes you is this man’s dumbfounding belief that his kids need financial stability more than a living father. And it’d be easy to discount him as a loony for that and be on our merry way.

But if we take a moment and empathize with him and dig a bit deeper into his motivation, we discover something important about his self-perception: This man perceives the value of his own life to be nothing more than financial.

He has no sense of value in himself as a father, husband, friend, companion, not to mention any other skills or hobbies. It’s not just that he thinks his kids would be better off with money than with him, it’s that he believes his only value as a person is his ability to make money.

Superhero Robbins quickly pounced on the nub of the issue: this man had never emotionally invested himself or identified with his roles as a father, a husband, a friend, a colleague — he had invested all of his identity (and time and effort) in making money and becoming rich. Then once his wealth vanished, so did his entire sense of self.

A while back, I saw a short video of Tim Ferriss and in passing he mentioned a concept called “identity diversification.” He more or less said the following:

When you have money, it’s always smart to diversify your investments. That way if one of them goes south, you don’t lose everything. It’s also smart to diversify your identity, to invest your self-esteem and what you care about into a variety of different areas — business, social life, relationships, philanthropy, athletics — so that when one goes south, you’re not completely screwed over and emotionally wrecked.

I loved this idea. It’s one of those ideas that’s so obvious yet elusive. When you hear it, it makes you feel like you just woke up. Identity diversification.

WHAT IS IDENTITY?

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all choose what’s important to us; we choose what we value. We choose the measuring sticks with which we measure success and our self-worth. Common measuring sticks people often choose include: being professionally successful, being highly educated, making a lot of money, being an excellent father/husband, being pious and faithful in a chosen religion, being socially and/or sexually popular and desired, being physically attractive or beautiful, and on and on.

Whatever we choose to judge our self-worth by, be it how big of a fan we are for our favorite sports team or making more money than any of our friends or getting more attention from the opposite sex, we are choosing in which way we want to receive validation to feel good about ourselves. Like a mural, whatever you choose to value and receive validation from conglomerates into your overall identity.

Most of us naturally gravitate toward certain aspects of our identity merely through growing up and having attention or praise lavished on us for particular reasons. Maybe you were the smart kid, or the good-looking quarterback, or the popular musician, or whatever. The validation we receive growing up largely determines how we choose to value ourselves in our adult life.

Some of us also experienced emotional traumas early on and therefore many of us get fixated on certain aspects of our identity more than others. Social pressures can also force us into over-identifying with a certain aspect of our identity, which then drowns out other areas of our lives.

For instance, the movie Blow is a true story about drug smuggler George Jung. Jung grew up in a poor family with a father who had trouble paying the bills. As a result, Jung grew up identifying disproportionately with earning money and being rich and doing it in whatever way he could. Once he began smuggling drugs, the social pressures of those around him, the drug cartels and the lifestyle he lived continued to reinforce his choice to receive validation from money and wealth. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s fairly obvious that eventually his life unraveled along with all of the relationships which mattered to him.

In my own life, I over-identified with my sex life and the validation I received from women. This led to me becoming depressed and living on a couch with no job. Later on, when I was building my business and often working 14-16 hour days simply to make a rent payment, a simple refund request or 2-3 days with no new sales could send me spiraling into a depression. Both of these examples from my life were times when I was investing myself completely into one area — women and business — and forsaking other important areas of my life and my identity.

In the case of the man in Robbins’ seminar, he lived an entire life that reinforced his identity as a man who could make money. He worked 100 hour weeks for decades. He made millions. Everyone who knew him, knew him as the man who could make money and did. Many of them knew him and liked him because he could make money.

This constant reinforcement and lack of diversity in his life eventually warped his perception in himself away from being a father, a husband, a friend, a role model, and instead a walking bank account. That’s all that came to matter to him and his identity. He had nothing else going for him because he never invested in any other aspects of his relationships. And when the money went, so did his self-worth along with it.

WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT?

One could take this advice as merely being a well-balanced individual. The problem is, people can be well-balanced but still not have a diverse identity. They can participate in a lot of different activities, but still derive the majority of their validation and self-worth from one source.

For instance, let’s say you’re a well-balanced individual with a successful law career, a spouse, some cool hobbies, and you enjoy reading in your spare time. But in reality your career dominates your identity. You work so much that you have little with which to relate to your spouse other than work. Your hobbies all involve your coworkers. Your reading relates to your career. You have no diversity.

A lot of people I know in finance are like this. Their friends are their co-workers. The books they read and movies they watch relate to their job. Their social excursions are work and networking functions. The dates they go on with people they meet doing work-related things. There’s no diversification of where they’re receiving their validation. And therefore their emotional stability and self-esteem is at risk.

If you invest all of your identity in one basket, then you put your self-esteem and emotional well-being at risk.

American Football player Junior Seau recently committed suicide a few years after retiring. A lot of discussion has taken place about athletes and how they can regain their lost identity once they retire. One can’t imagine what they must feel, having gone their entire lives since childhood being recognized for being great at a single activity, and then once they hit their 40’s, it’s all taken away.

Seau is not the only casualty. There’s this heartbreaking article about Hall of Fame football player William “Refrigerator” Perry and his descent into depression and alcoholism after retirement. Or this excellent article on soccer legends Pele and Maradona and their inability to let go of their pasts. Or how about this one on Michael Jordan and his continued bitterness and insecurity after retirement?

Three years ago, the thought of my business going under terrified me. I stayed up entire nights worrying about if a new web page would make me money or not. When they didn’t I would lose sleep again trying to figure out why.

Ironically, now that I’m successful in business, my identity isn’t as invested in it, and if it failed tomorrow I don’t think I’d be as devastated now as I would have been three years ago. Why? Because I’ve diversified my identity. I’ve been around the world, speak multiple languages, have a wide array of friends of varying lifestyles, am a good musician, a successful writer — if my business crashed, it would surely suck and be stressful, but I imagine emotionally I would hold up much better.

What do you care about? I mean, what do you really care about? Invest yourself in a wide range of areas. If you like music, start attending concerts or learn an instrument. Don’t just travel as a vacation, but invest in learning about the cultures. Learn a new language. Make time for old friends. Pick up new hobbies. Get competitive in something. Expand yourself beyond your work and your relationships. Go out for no other reason than to be with your friends. Learn how to dance. Take some time off work. Attend a meditationretreat.

And don’t just do something else, but care about it, invest yourself in it.

Lest you become like our finance guru at a Tony Robbins seminar. Because chances are, the Batman of Psychology is not going to be around to save you.

12:43:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge 13, dancing in public

Comfort zone challenge 13, dancing in public

14:36:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge 12, asking romantic suggestions

Comfort zone challenge 12, asking romantic suggestions

14:30:00 - By Vincent 0

comfort zone challenge 10, asking people obnoxious stuff

comfort zone challenge 10, asking people obnoxious stuff

14:24:00 - By Vincent 0

20 Small Ways to Break Out of Your Comfort Zone and Create a Positive Change Starting Today

by HENRIK EDBERG

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
Brian Tracy

I’m a big fan of doing the unusual thing. Sometimes in big ways. Often in small and daily ways to mix things up.

Why?

Because this habit is a simple and relatively easy way to:

• Expand your comfort zone. And if you change your perspective on yourself from someone who sticks to the old and comfortable all the time to someone who likes to mix things up then it will feel more natural and easier to break out of your comfort zone when comes to bigger things too. Because this habit makes the inner resistance and the fear that may hold you back smaller.
• Add a spark to your day and come alive. It keeps you from getting stuck in the same old daily or weekly rut. And it adds more fun to your life.
• Refuel your curiousness about the world and life. When you do the unusual thing regularly you to discover a ton of new and exciting things. And that will refuel your curiousness about what else is out there that you haven’t discovered just yet.

So how do you do the unusual thing and break out of your comfort zone in small and sometimes bigger ways?

Here’s 20 ideas that have helped me and still help me to do just that.

1. Eat the unusual thing. Instead of choosing the meat-based dish at lunch try the vegetarian alternative. Or try the fish if you usually go for the beef.
2. Smile towards everyone. Instead of just going along with your day in your normal social way try smiling more. Smile more towards your co-workers, the lady at the checkout at the supermarket, the people closest to you and smile to yourself when you encounter a mirror. See what happens.
3. Cook something new. Each week we try cooking a new recipe. It is most often a tasty experiment and helps us to find, sometimes unexpected, new favorites. It has also certainly made me a better cook in the last few years.
4. Mix up your music. I mix things up by trying new music every month. I have a look at the best music on sites like Pitchfork.com and Metacritic.com. Then I load a few of those albums on Spotify and listen.
5. Work in complete silence and stillness. Shut the door to your office, shut off your music, unplug the internet and just focus on doing the most important thing you can do today while enjoying the silence.
6. Read something that your friends wouldn’t guess that you are reading. Right now I’m reading a Swedish book about investing sensibly in stocks. Definitely not my usual cup of tea. But it’s really interesting.
7. Do all your shopping for the week. Instead of doing grocery shopping when you feel like it or need to, sit down and plan what you will eat and need for a whole week. Go and get all of that at the store. Now you don’t have to go back there for a week and you’ll probably have a bunch of extra free time and less stress to enjoy this week.
8. Have a day of kindness. Instead of having the usual bursts of irony, sarcasm etc. during your day try to go for a day where you are just being kind and friendly to everyone including yourself.
9. Enjoy it all. All fluctuations during your normal day is a part of life and as life it’s a gift in some way or another. So on some days I just tell myself: “enjoy it all”. Then I try to enjoy my day no matter if the inbox is overfull, if I’m hungry and starting to get cranky. The things I usually don’t like so much I tell myself to enjoy as a part of life. And so my day actually becomes more enjoyable because much of how we see life is about how we choose to think about it.
10. Watch something odd. If you usually watch thrillers then try a romantic comedy. If you most often get stuck with documentaries try an animated movie form Japan (I recommend anything by Hayao Miyazaki). If you love Family Guy, try the Wire. Expand what you watch to get new ideas and impressions.
    
11. Listen to the sound of the world. Leave your portable music player/radio at home. Just listen to sounds of the city, nature and people as you move about during your day.
12. Take a day to be offline. I tend to spend a day a week offline (usually Saturday or Sunday). It’s a wonderful change of pace and feels like I’m on a small, healthy and extra relaxing vacation. Plus, it makes it more fun to get back to work on Monday.
13. Take a news black out. Instead of reading the paper or watching the news as usual try to go without that for a day. See how it affects you and how much you miss the news.
14. Hide a note for a loved one. Hide a sweet note of affection for a partner, family member or a friend in his or her cookie jar, tea or coffee container, book on the nightstand, hat, shoes or somewhere else where they look each day. Make him or her happy in an unexpected and unusual way.
15. Take a different route. To work or to school. To your gym or home. See something new even when you are in transport mode.
16. Walk or take the bicycle to work. Instead of taking the car or riding the bus as usual. Get some exercise and fresh air before it is time to start working and on your way home.
17. Let it go just for today. If you often get into arguments or have trouble letting issues go and replay them over and over in your mind then just for today let it all go. Tomorrow you can take up your old habits just where you left them . But for today, instead of getting into an argument just let it go and walk away. If you replay something in your mind, let it go for today. If an old memory pops up today too, let it go instead of dwelling.
18. Go out. If you usually stay in during the weekdays, then call up a few friends and head down to the pub for a few hours even if it’s just a Wednesday. Or call up someone you haven’t met in ages and go for a cup of tea or coffee. Or pop down to the movie theater and catch a movie. If you usually do those things though, consider just staying in with PJs on and taking it easy.
19. Sit in a new place. If you have favorite chair or part of the sofa where you always sit then try another chair or place to sit today. It can give you a new perspective at work or at home. And I have found that it can even give me some new and fresh thoughts and perspectives on life.
20. Throw out the things you haven’t used in 1 year. Go through one part of your home – a closet, a drawer in your desk or bedroom cabinet – and see what’s in there. Go through the items one by one and ask yourself: have I used this item in the past year? If not, give the item(s) away to charity or a friend or simply throw it out.

16:44:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge 8, compliment people

Comfort zone challenge 8, compliment people

14:18:00 - By Vincent 0

comfort zone challenge 7, work out in public. Central London

comfort zone challenge 7, work out in public. Central London. Picadilly circus

14:16:00 - By Vincent 0

comfort zone challenge nr 6, making eye contact with strangers

Comfort Zone challenge nr 6. From London... (and therefore in the rain).... asking people a question.

14:13:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge nr 5, a high five with people in the street

Comfort zone challenge nr 5, high five, five people!

14:06:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort zone challenge, day nr 4

Comfort zone challenge, day nr 4, making eye contact and smile.

14:04:00 - By Vincent 0

What Are Comfort Zone Challenges? The First Official Definition Ever

By Till H. Groß

  

I am not exaggerating when I say Comfort Zone Challenges changed the trajectory of my whole life.

I was about 21 when I did my first Comfort Zone Challenge, ever. Don’t get me wrong–at this point in time I was already doing well. I was earning good money with live seminars and coaching, I had given a University guest lecture, my mentors were some of the best therapists in the country, I had great friends, and a beautiful and intelligent girlfriend; but Comfort Zone Challenges took all this to another level. Now, not even two years later, I mingle with CEOs of million-dollar companies, ask future Nobel prize winners for advice, and can call some of the stars of the startup scene my close-friends. All this, while I charge more than $5000 for 30min talks, speak at international conferences, appear on national TV, get featured in newspapers, and collaborate with YouTube stars that I used to watch in awe.

Obviously behind all this is a lot of hard work, but I am very sure that my increase in courage and confidence was the defining factor that helped me to leverage my efforts. To make this clear, I believe skill is the most important thing if you want to accomplish anything in life, but courage and confidence are what leverage this skill to allow you to do extraordinary things.

Josef Penninger is about to win the Nobel Prize in medicine and ranks among the top ten scientists in the world. He happened to be my mentor during a TV show last year. When I asked him what distinguishes him from other scientists, he said: “I am very sure there are thousands of other scientists who are equally capable, but I am very courageous.” So as soon as you reach a certain level of skill, courage is the factor that takes it to the next level.

The good thing is you can train your courage and learn to become more confident!One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by doing Comfort Zone Challenges. In this article, I will explain what Comfort Zone Challenges are, where they come from, and lay the foundation for the next article where I will explain how you can use Comfort Zone Challenges to boost your courage and confidence.

Where Do Comfort Zone Challenges Come From?

It’s not clear where Comfort Zone Challenges were mentioned for the first time, but today they resemble a modern and fresh form of exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is a technique from cognitive-behavioral therapy and was first used in the 1950s as a way to cure people with specific phobias. In exposure therapy, you would expose a person to a feared stimulus (eg. a snake, a small space, crowds of people) until a desensitization would occur. Desensitization is when your body no longer responds with fear to a stimulus that before had caused a fear response.

This exposure can happen gradually, from the least fear-inducing stimulus to the most fear-inducing stimulus, which is also called systematic exposure. Alternatively, the therapist would expose the client to the scariest thing on his fear hierarchy first and thereby tackle the client’s biggest fear head on. This form of exposure is called flooding.

What happens when you are exposed to a frightening but non-dangerous (!) stimulus? Well, over time your fear decreases, and after several of these exposures the fear will vanish completely.

This concept got picked up by several self-help authors and pickup artists, termed Comfort Zone Challenges, and was advocated as a way to overcome social limitations like the fear of approaching strangers. I learned about Comfort Zone Challenges for the first time when I read Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week. This is also where the now famous “Lay down on the street for 30 seconds” challenge initially comes from.

What is a Comfort Zone Challenge? The First Official Definition

There is no official definition for “Comfort Zone Challenge” on the Internet or anywhere else. So some time ago I lived up to my reputation as a budding scientist and crafted the first official definition. Therefore, I took into account what others had written about the topic and how it related to psychology, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy. I also made a special effort to distinguish Comfort Zone Challenges from other courageous acts, just plain stupid things, and pranks, since the lines between these can often be blurry when there is not clear distinction. I also tried to craft the definition in such a way that it would automatically answer all the questions you guys usually ask me. Thus, I ended up with the following definition:

“A Comfort Zone Challenge is a planned action to face a fear with the primary goal of overcoming this fear or increasing your courage and confidence. This action includes a calculated risk of negative social evaluation but does not expose you to real danger or long-term negative consequences.”

Let’s take a closer look at this definition and especially why is it important to have such a definition.

Why the Definition is Important

A clear definition is important for several reasons. On the one hand, it allows you to be more effective in your endeavor to increase confidence; on the other hand, it protects you from getting stressed out by Comfort Zone Challenges, which is not the goal.

There are two parts of the definition that are tremendously important and understanding these can save you a lot of stress.

“A Comfort Zone Challenge is a planned action…”

The first part that is very important is the fact that a Comfort Zone Challenge is always a planned action.

I recently received this email from a guy who was pretty stressed out.

He started to see everything as a challenge. I have been there too. There was a time when I would sit in the subway and start thinking “What would scare the shit out of me right now,” and then I would have this mental fight as to whether I should do it or not. This is just mind fucking and stressful; there is no point going through life and trying to do as many challenges as possible, or seeing everything as a possible challenge.

In order to avoid being trapped in this mental spiral, we consider only planned actions as a Comfort Zone Challenges.

This part of the definition goes back to the roots in exposure therapy. Before every exposure, the client and therapist would plan the exposure precisely and also attempt to predict what would happen. Focusing on this can help relieve you from a lot of unnecessary stress. If you are always on the lookout for things to do that might scare you then you will only end up in a constant state of anxiousness–which is not the point of Comfort Zone Challenges. Believe me, there are so many people who start doing challenges but begin to find it hard to relax and just live their lives, because they don’t draw the distinction between Comfort Zone Challenges and random acts.

Of course, there are some badass people who do challenges all the time and consider everything a challenge, but they’re generally just intense motherfuckers. Most of us would simply end up stressed out and worse off than before.

The Basketball Metaphor

Let’s make this whole thing a bit more tangible with a little metaphor. Assume you are a basketball player. A baller lifts weights and works out to become stronger to perform better on the court. Likewise, we do Comfort Zone Challenges to become more confident and perform “better” in social situations.

When you workout you have a clear plan of what you will do, then you go to the gym and do your workout according to this plan. When you complete your last exercise, you’re done for the day. Think about it–this planned action is important. You wouldn’t walk through your daily life always looking for heavy things you could lift and then start doing curls with a couple of books or do some pull-ups at your door (though I once had this guy on my team, let’s call him Dafe, who actually did lift everything around him and was constantly in a workout mode. But that’s a different story.). It is pretty obvious that being in a constant workout mode is counterproductive. The same goes for Comfort Zone Challenges. Constantly being on the lookout for a challenge will not achieve the same results as a planned challenge; it also has a higher risk of backfiring. So instead, have a Comfort Zone Challenge routine and know when you are done, similar to a workout routine.

On to the next part of the definition:

“A Comfort Zone Challenge is a planned action with the primary goal of overcoming this fear or increasing your courage and confidence”

This part defines what is and what is not a challenge. Comfort Zone Challenges are a clear and effective tool to overcome fear and boost courage and confidence–that’s it! Due to this primary goal, there is a pretty clear line between Challenges and just plain stupid things, pranks, or real life situations.

REAL LIFE VS COMFORT ZONE CHALLENGE

Comfort Zone Challenges are a tool to prepare yourself for real life situations and should therefore be distinct from real life situations. For example, if you are at a party and you see a really interesting person whom you have always wanted to talk to but have been too afraid to approach, then this is not a Comfort Zone Challenge. This is a real life situation where your primary goal is to get to know the person – Comfort Zone Challenges prepare your for this kind of moment.

PRANK VS COMFORT ZONE CHALLENGE

Walking up to a stranger without saying anything and trying to hold the person’s hand might be uncomfortable and scare you, but when your buddy is filming it, it’s just a prank and not a Comfort Zone Challenge. The primary goal of a prank is to get a funny reaction from people, and while it is uncomfortable, it avoids the purpose of making yourself uncomfortable as a challenge.

STUPID DARES VS COMFORT ZONE CHALLENGES

Likewise, two boys who challenge each other to yell “Penis” as loud as possible, or to run naked across campus, are not attempting a challenge, but are being stupid (or funny), since the primary goal is to impress the other person and not to challenge yourselfin an uncomfortable situation.

Primary Goals

• Comfort Zone Challenge >> become more confident and courageous
• Real Life >> win a friend, get a date, get a point across, speak up, ask for what you want, go to a party,…
• Prank >> get funny reactions from people
• Dare >> impress the other person

The Basketball Metaphor

Let’s go back to our basketball player and see how this part of the definition can be explained with our workout metaphor. The difference betweens a prank, a dare and a Comfort Zone Challenge is rather clear. However the lines between Comfort Zone Challenges and real life situations might be a bit blurry from time to time so we will use the metaphor to distinguish between these two. Consider this:

Part of your workout as a basketball player might be to work on your hops; therefore, you would do a variety of different jumps with the primary goal of training the muscles in your legs to be able to jump higher. So standing in the gym consciously jumping up and down would be considered a workout because the primary goal is to train your muscles. Now, if you are on the court playing a game and you jump to grab a rebound, your primary goal is to grab the ball – so even though it is the same movement you wouldn’t call this a workout.

The same goes for Comfort Zone Challenges – you are doing them with the primary goal of becoming more confident. One of your challenges might be to approach ten strangers and ask for something, so to complete this challenge you will go to ten strangers and ask for something, like the time or directions to the nearest service station. However, if you need a tissue and therefore ask a stranger for a tissue, even though you might be scared, this is not a Comfort Zone Challenge because your primary goal is to actually get the tissue, not to challenge your comfort zone.

And the last part of the definition:

“A Comfort Zone Challenge is a planned action to face a fear with the primary goal of overcoming this fear or increasing your courage and confidence. This action includes a calculated risk of negative social evaluation but does not expose you to real danger or long-term negative consequences.”

When doing Comfort Zone Challenges, you will face negative social evaluation, but this is the point of many challenges. Thereby, you will get accustomed to rejection or embarrassment and learn how to deal with it effectively; so some degree of negative evaluation is just part of the deal.

However, by no means should you put yourself in danger, or do things that are likely to have long-term consequences.

If your challenge is to look five strangers in the eye until the other person looks away, don’t do it with guys like this, unless you can handle it if it goes south. There is no benefit in putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

The same applies to long-term consequences. I recently received an email where a girl asked me if she should do the “Howling Like A Wolf” challenge in her library.

My reply was of course she should not do this and the same applies for most other people. You are doing the whole Comfort Zone Challenge thing to become more social, win friends, gain confidence or to be more extroverted. Having your whole University believe you are nuts and maybe even getting expelled is not helpful in this endeavor. Because you might end up like this young fellow:

Therefore, I would be cautious doing challenges in places that you usually spend your time or around people you see on a daily basis. This means most people shouldn’t do challenges at their work, university, or places they frequent. Unless you are already incredibly social, extroverted, or most people know you, people will probably assume you are crazy. I can do those things because I literally don’t care what the people think and I already have a reputation. I was the guy who held a lecture in his first semester and I knew a ton of people. Of course you want to stop caring what others think, but you also want to have friends, right? So rely on your own judgment as to whether you should do challenges in your everyday environment; however, I encourage you to seek neutral scenarios.

So when you start doing challenges, do it in places you don’t frequent, avoid long-term consequences, and don’t put yourself in any real danger.

Basketball Metaphor

Our basketball metaphor unfortunately doesn’t really apply here, though I will try to make it fit: If you have a game during regular season, you wouldn’t bring your dumbbells and start a workout during halftime. So the lesson here: Differentiate between training (Comfort Zone Challenges) and game time (living your normal life) and keep them separate.

Next Step

Now you have a clear idea what Comfort Zone Challenges are, and this definition will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. In the next article, you will learn how you can use Comfort Zone Challenges to boost your courage and confidence – there is a difference between the two.

Key Points:

• “A Comfort Zone Challenge is a planned action to face a fear with the primary goal of overcoming this fear or increasing your courage and confidence. This action includes a calculated risk of negative social evaluation but does not expose you to real danger or long-term negative consequences.”
• Planned action: don’t run around like a headless chicken trying to make a challenge out of everything.
• Primary goal: differentiate challenges from just random acts, real-life situations, and pranks.
• Avoid real danger and long-term negative consequences: don’t mess with the wrong people and avoid places you frequent

And now…get your first Challenge!

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16:00:00 - By Vincent 0