First, I spoke to a group of middle-school students about journalism. It was a day when parents were supposed to come and talk about their work and discuss why what you learned in middle school was actually important in real life.
I am fairly self-confident about talking to a roomful of adults. But 12- and 13-year-old children made me sweat. Some looked at me intently, but others stared out the window, played with their pencils or poked their neighbors. Suddenly, I was pulled back to my middle-school years, trying to entertain the“popular” kids. I was most uncomfortable.
A few days later, we had some workers in to paint a few rooms in the house. No big deal, I thought. Except that as more rooms were draped in drop cloths and living room furniture crowded the dining room, our entire family— and two befuddled cats— retreated upstairs.
No one could find anything. Everyone was out of sorts. We were feeling decidedly uncomfortable.
Moving out of our comfort zones is supposed to be a good thing. We challenge ourselves, we grow and take on new risks. But is this always true? After all, over the last few years, many of us have been pushed out of our comfort zones, forced to seek new jobs, even careers.
First of all, I wondered, how did the term originate? In my research, I came across one theory that comfort zone was the temperature range— about 67 to 78 degrees, depending on the season— at which people were neither too hot nor too cold.
All right. I can’t test that with snow on the ground. But if we transfer that to a psychological comfort zone, it makes sense— it’s where we’re completely at home. Or as Judith M. Bardwick, author of“Danger in the Comfort Zone” (American Management Association, 1991), writes,“The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral position.”
She cites afamous experimentconducted by the psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, way back in 1908. Using mice, they found that stimulation improved performance, up to a certain level— what is now known as optimal anxiety. When that level is passed, and we’re under too much stress, performance deteriorates.
“We need a place of productive discomfort,” said Daniel H. Pink, author of“Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” (Riverhead, 2009).“If you’re too comfortable, you’re not productive. And if you’re too uncomfortable, you’re not productive. Like Goldilocks, we can’t be too hot or too cold.”
Everyone’s reaction to stress is different, of course— your comfort zone is not mine.
The objective is to reach that optimal level so that our skills increase and we become comfortable with that new level of anxiety— then we’re in an expanded comfort zone. And ideally, we will get more used to those feelings of“productive discomfort” and won’t be so scared to try new things in the future.
Brené Brown, a research professor at theUniversity of HoustonGraduate College of Social Work and author of“The Gifts of Imperfection” (Hazelden, 2010), has another definition of comfort zone:“Where our uncertainty, scarcity and vulnerability are minimized— where we believe we’ll have access to enough love, food, talent, time, admiration. Where we feel we have some control.”
The trouble is, Ms. Brown said,“When we get into times of social, political or financial instability, our comfort zones get smaller.” The more afraid we are, she said,“the more impenetrable our comfort zones buffers become.”
There was a huge shift after 9/11, she said, in just how vulnerable people were willing to be in their personal and work lives. When we feel vulnerable, she added, we often feel fear and shame.
And,“since those are some of our most difficult emotions, we want to avoid them,” she said.
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