How To Grow Your Comfort Hula Hoop

Back in college, I took a “women in leadership” class, and to this day, it’s one of the best courses I’ve ever taken. One of my favorite lessons was about expanding your comfort zone. The concept is pretty straight forward, essentially your comfort zone is your own personal bubble and everything within that bubble is what you’re comfortable with.

Pretty simple, but since I’m a visual learner, I want to take you on an imaginary adventure together. Let’s embark.

I like to imagine my comfort zone as a hula hoop, but picture whatever works for you. Now, if you were to imagine the size of your hula hoop in relation to how many things you felt comfortable with or comfortable doing, how big would your hula hoop be? Would it be child sized and close to your body because you’re cautious and don’t like to take risks? Or would it expand far out of sight because you live your life by the “I’ll try anything once” philosophy?

In case you were wondering, my hula hoop is pretty spacious. You could practically fit an entire traveling circus in mine. Okay fine, maybe more like a few jugglers and a cotton candy stand, but that’s beside the point. The point is, how big is your comfort zone? And, more importantly, are you satisfied with it?

You’ve now reached the end of our imaginary adventure together. Thanks for attending and don’t forget your imaginary goody bag on the way out.

In order to expand our hula hoops, we were asked to do things that pushed the boundaries of our comfort zone, and we had to do so every other week for the entire quarter. Because everyone’s comfort zones were so different, what was new and scary varied from person to person. Some people challenged themselves to go to dinner or a movie by themselves, some wanted to be more bold in their dating life and ask someone out, while others wanted to ask for a raise or speak up in male dominated classes. Some people needed to start small, while others took big leaps. Now it’s your turn to reflect on what would be new and scary for you. Maybe it’s something as small as wearing an outfit that you’re not sure is “you” or maybe it’s something as big as quitting a job and pursuing a new career.

Now that you’ve taken moment to reflect, you may be thinking, what’s the point? What could I possibly gain from all this risk taking? Well, the details of said risks are for you to decide but essentially the more you push yourself out of your comfort zone, the larger your comfort zone becomes and eventually, nothing will be too scary for you to tackle. Women are constantly afraid to take risks because we’ve grown up being told that we aren’t good enough, that women shouldn’t do XYZ, and that we should be sensible and grateful for what we do have, glass ceilings be damned. And that’s bullsh*t. We’re already severely underestimated by the world, why are we also underestimating ourselves?

Every woman in that class that pushed the boundaries of their comfort zone came back better than ever. They either had great success or simply realized that whatever they had set out to do wasn’t so bad, even if it failed. It’s been a few years now and I’m still growing my comfort zone. Every chance that I’ve taken so far has changed my life, usually for the better. I said yes to opportunities that were intimidating, but ultimately got me to where I am today and kickstarted a lot of career growth I might not have had if I’d said no. I took emotional risks and tried to be more vulnerable while dating, and now I’m in one of the most fulfilling relationships I’ve ever had. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t tried and failed, because I have, many times. It just wasn’t as often as I thought it would be.

To be honest, I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone right now by writing this article. I’m currently pursuing a new career even though it scares the sh*t out of me, but I’m doing it anyway because now I have a frame of reference for all of the times that taking a risk has paid off. I’m dedicated to growing my comfort zone until nothing really scares me…except maybe spiders.

Let’s recap.

We all have a comfort zone and we owe it to ourselves to push the boundaries of that comfort zone, because we deserve great things from life. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone will grow your confidence and you’ll be ready to take on the world because every time you try something new, you learn something, even in failure. So I leave you with this:

I challenge you to do at least one thing per week that’s out of your comfort zone, and do that for a whole month. That’s just 4 new things! You can totally do that! You can start off small, but I want you to be honest and really try to do things that make you uncomfortable, not just try a new ice cream flavor.

Here’s some ideas:

Are you plagued with anxiety about how you come across in emails? Ditch the excessive exclamation marks and just write the damn email, it’ll be okay.

Got a cute new outfit and you’re not sure fits your “vibe” or you’re worried what people will think? Wear it anyway. I guarantee everyone else is too busy worrying about themselves to notice. You might even get a few compliments!

Got your eye on that cute barista but are too nervous to do anything except flutter your eyelashes? Drop them your number! I promise it’s not as scary as you think, and if it goes badly, then you have a funny story for parties.

Want that job/promotion/opportunity? Reach out and ask for it. You’re definitely not going to get it by crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

Good luck, and I hope your hula hoops grow large enough that you can fit an entire circus within it, jugglers and all.

I'd love to know how you grew your comfort zone and how it went so feel free to interact and let me know!