Completely abandoning my comfort zone

A lotta things have been changing for a lotta folks lately. And dealing with change can be extremely stressful if we don’t understand its purpose and its role in helping us evolve.

Case studies are always helpful for learning, so I’d like to offer a case study in radical change and the lessons to be taken from it. The case subject is me.

Things in my life don’t look the least bit like they did a couple of years ago. About 85% of the changes have been my idea. The other half have either been imposed on me or are unexpected and unintended consequences. All of them are pushing me so far outside my comfort zone that I’m pretty sure I don’t have one anymore. This isn’t a matter of stretching my old zone. It’s a process of smashing it to smithereens and leaving it in a pile of debris that’s disappearing into the horizon behind me.

During the past 18 months I have:

• Shut down a successful 25-year business and relinquished all its revenue
• Turned 65 and then 66
• Spent two months in Europe thinking
• Finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up
• Began an entirely new mission, business and career
• Researched and wrote a new 250-page book on a topic that was brand new to me
• Bootstrapped the new venture while learning how to build websites, social media presence, online courses, blogs, a YouTube channel and hashtags
• Sold our house, sold most of our belongings, put the rest in storage and become transients till we figure out where we want to land next
• Then, just as the anticipated revenue from the workshops, keynotes and live training programs of this new business was due to start flowing again, COVID-19 hit and shut it all down
• Started all over again learning how to create and deliver a virtual presence

In short, with the exception of my absolutely and always perfect wife, Gail, there’s essentially nothing about my life now that is the same as it was two years ago.

As proof that you both can and should teach an old dog new tricks, here are a few things that I’ve observed as a newly-minted, Medicare-eligible upstart who set out to reinvent himself at the age when they told me I was supposed to retire.

• The universe, God, fate, or whatever you want to call it, has a wonderful way of getting our attention when we’ve been too complacent or dozing at the wheel for too long. It could be a heart attack, a car accident, a divorce, job loss or a pandemic. Regardless, it’s a wake-up call and we’re supposed to pay attention rather than whine.
  
• As tempting as it sometimes is to whine, blame or complain, all it does is shift your focus away from the prize that’s waiting for you. It also puts you in the company of all the other whiners and complainers. There are no champions to be found in that crowd.
  
• There is no such thing as “too late.” You are never too old, too tired, too out of touch or too anything to do a cannonball into the deep end.
  
• “Giving up” is never an option. I’m not even sure what that would look like. Would I sit on a park bench all day, moaning about how unfair life can be? The only appropriate response to falling down is to get back up.
  
• You should always be a beginner at something. It keeps your heart young and your mind open.
  
• The proverbial Fountain of Youth is all about flexibility. Flexibility of mind, of emotions, of spirit and of body allows you to bend and sway with the winds that want to knock you down. Practice flexibility. Take a yoga class, eat something you’ve never tried before, listen to someone else’s music, read a book that you wouldn’t otherwise read.
  
• The more you allow things to change and the more you seek out change for its own sake, the more you build up a tolerance for risk and discomfort. These become your new comfort zone. Before too long, the old life looks pretty dull and boring.
  
• If you’re going to do something you’ve never done before, you’re going to have to do something you’ve never done before.
  
• When you try one new thing and succeed, it emboldens you to try another. When you’ve succeeded at a few new things, you start to build a momentum that can carry you right past the ones that fall flat.  Each success leads to the hutzpah to try the next challenge.
  
• In order to make room for new clothes in your closet, you have to get rid of some of the old ones. In order to make room for new beliefs in your heart, you have to get rid of some of the old ones.

It would be nice if we could have all the right conditions lined up, the guarantees in place, the assurances secured, the permissions granted. But I’ve learned that your parachute can’t open until after you’ve jumped out of the plane.

What about you? COVID-19 has pushed all of us to the edges and beyond of our previous comfort zones. How much of it are you desperately trying to preserve? Why? What might you become if you decided that leaving it behind might not be so scary after all?