Challenge Yourself

Yetti: Don’t you want to do something out of the norm?
Person: Why would I do that? I’m good at this.
Yetti: The objective of these monthly goal lists is to improve something. Didn’t you conquer this last month?
Person: It’s slightly different this month.

I belong to multiple group chats filled with ambitious women. In most of these chats, goals and passions are discussed. Dreams are shared and properly dissected. Encouragement and congratulations are given. We aim to help each other with our goals, even if it’s simply in the form of a texting conversation, just like the above example from a conversation I had yesterday evening.

I realized yesterday after this conversation that the common theme this year for most us within these chats has been challenging ourselves. This past week I tested my social anxiety. Remember that irrational fear of areas I am not familiar with? Yeah, I poked at that too. It started with running a few errands for a friend, which segued into attending a bloggers brunch and an impromptu rooftop shindig, and concluded with an evening at a club in Rhode Island where the men do not understand the word, “No.”  If you’re not familiar with my social anxiety history, I honestly hate to go places on my own. I only recently conquered going to the grocery store by myself, and even that is still sometimes hard to do.

Running these errands was a big deal. A pep talk from my co-worker before I left work kind of big deal. A constantly making sure I had my mase in my pocket big deal. A “Yetti don’t forget to breathe” big deal. But after day three of venturing into unknown areas, a wave of invincibility came over me and I confidently attended my first blogging event within NYC saturday afternoon.

I’m not going to lie, having both E and Ty at the event made things a lot more easier, but I was still forced to network with the other wonderful women I was seated next to. I disappeared in the beginning of the brunch to get myself together in the bathroom, it’s no surprise that I need to get over this hump. Not to mention, I had recently had a conversation with a friend who sees so much potential in my blog and brand, I kind of felt like I owed it to her to give networking a try and succeed. And succeed I did.

But that isn’t the point of this post.

I strongly believe that if you choose to never leave the closed confinements of your comfort zone, you will stifle your growth. You’ll fall into the pit of complacent and though you may live a stress free life, you’ll also be living a very predictable one. Where there is consistent predictability, there is less experiences. Where there is less experiences, there is also boredom. Where there is boredom, there is no Yetti, and who would want to live a life Yetti free?

Not to mention, when a life event throws you off from your routine, you have less mechanisms to cope with it.

There comes a time where you need to break free from the cookie cutter life approach. Personally, I got tired of waiting for good things to happen to me. I was tired of waiting for something big to turn things around. Tired of waiting for a solution on figuring out my dreams and I was tired of waiting on happy. So tired that I got myself a therapist, some confidence and an urge to conquer my fears of rejection, failure and now my social anxiety. And as doing so, I just so happened to stumble upon happiness. Go figure.

[Tweet “Comfort reduces our motivation for introducing important transformations in our lives –  R. Zilca”]

So challenge yourself. Do it daily. Even if it’s something small. You need to tug at your comfort zone’s perimeters. All those things that seem too hard, too farfetched, or too big? Do them. You can’t settle for mediocracy when your potential, growth and happiness are all on the line.