Your Comfort Zone is Keeping You BROKE and STUCK
A guy I used to know once told me that the days drag on, but the years fly right on by.
I thought that was hilarious. It really struck a chord with me. It's sad, but it's true. The years fly by because we're living in our comfort zones. We're far too comfortable with our daily lives. The days drag on because we're bored and unchallenged with our jobs. But what does this have to do with being broke and stuck?
Cubicle Hell. Many dreams have died here.
THE COMFORT ZONE TRAP
First, let's talk about your comfort zone. The comfort zone is that little bubble where everything feels predictable and routine. You know what that is? You wake up at the same time every morning. You have the same work wardrobe, the same breakfast, you drive the same route to work every day, deal with the same boss and coworkers, and you come home the same way to pay your bills, maybe watch a little TV and do the same thing over and over again day after day.
And if you work remotely, sometimes you forget what day of the week it even is. But all this routine feels safe. But here's the problem with that. Safety and comfort don't equal growth. Just think about this for a moment. If you never change anything, then how can you expect your life to change?
And that's exactly why so many people feel broke and stuck. They tell themselves, I wish I could move abroad, but I just don't even know where to begin. Getting a passport is the farthest thing from my mind, or I don't have anywhere near the kind of money it's going to cost me to get to Europe, something like that.
Or I want more adventure, but I'm afraid of making a mistake. Could be afraid of failing in your new home and having to come back to the United States. Feeling embarrassed, but it's no such thing as failure if you learn from it. That's the thing, and if you feel these sort of feelings, well then you're not alone.
Your job that you work, I assume 40 hours per week, you get maybe one or two weeks vacation, you're making barely enough money to get by.
JOB stands for just over broke. That's why they call it a job.
HOW COMFORT KEEPS YOU BROKE
Let's break this down. Your financial situation is a direct result of your daily activities and choices. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, and if you're constantly stressed out about money or if you're lying on a job that you just don't like, it doesn't fulfill you at all. It just a means to an end.
Then chances are you're stuck in a cycle of financial survival. The proverbial rat in a hamster wheel, or I call it a treadmill, whatever you want to call it. If survival mode is a comfort zone, even though it doesn't feel very comfortable, it's still a form of a comfort zone because it's predictable and familiar to you.
We like that. We like routine and consistency and predictability. Taking a risk like moving abroad, having a child, or starting a side business, even learning a new skill is going to feel scary to begin with. So instead of taking action, a lot of people just stay where they are. They're stuck because at least in this position of being stuck, you know what to expect.
It's routine and predictable, like I said. But here's the hard truth. If you want a different financial future or just a different future in general, then you're going to have to make some changes. Something's got to give.
HOW COMFORT KEEPS YOU STUCK
Putting money aside, let's talk about feeling stuck. Maybe you've told yourself It's too late for me to start over. I'm just too old. Or I should just be grateful for what I have. It's not so bad. It could be worse. Something like that. You've heard it, perhaps you said it to yourself, but deep down you know that you want more.
You want more adventure, more freedom, more excitement. After all, the United States, wasn't our country built on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? I don't see that many people having a life or feeling any liberty or pursuing any happiness. Lives of quiet desperation. Who said that? I forgot who said men living lives of quiet desperation.
But I think you know what I'm getting at. It's not selfish to want more out of life. In fact, it's human. So why aren't you going after it? Your goals, what you say you want, what's stopping you? It's fear. Fear of failure. Maybe it's fear of what other people think. Like your friends or your family.
What will they think? Fear of the unknown is a big one. Whatever it is, your fears are keeping you stuck, keeping you in the same loop, doing the same old thing day in and day out. And keep getting the same results. If you keep doing the same things while expecting different results. There's a word for that.
It's called insanity. So going back to my previous point about living lives of quiet desperation, that in includes a very small, subtle, insidious form of insanity. The same old thing day in and day out, but hoping for something to change or hoping for a rescue. None of that's going to happen. None of that's going to materialize.
But let me ask you this. If you stay exactly where you are for the next five years, how are you going to feel? Then how do you feel about just asking yourself this question? If nothing changes for the next five plus years, what will I be like in five years from now? How am I going to feel about myself?
How will my health be?
So if this thought doesn't stir up something inside you, maybe then it's time to shake things up in your life finally, and for good.
BREAKING FREE FROM THE COMFORT ZONE
So how do you break free from the comfort zone? How do you stop being bored and stuck? I would say first thing you should try doing is getting uncomfortable on purpose with intention. “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” I was told some time ago. Just get out of your usual routine.
As you're thinking about moving to a foreign country, you're going to have to break out of your routine anyway and think about the things you're going to need to do while you're moving and while you're living abroad. Like making small talk with new people, making friends out of strangers, that sort of thing. Do those things now in your home country while you're still speaking your native language. If you think small talk is hard now, if you think making a new friend is hard now in English here in the United States, it will be twice as difficult when you move abroad. Having to do it in maybe a different language, a different culture, different country, so on and so forth. So start getting uncomfortable now, slightly uncomfortable going out of your way, slightly. Being more outgoing in general, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, that doesn't matter.
You just want to get out of your comfort zone in small little baby steps that push that envelope. And that way as you do that, the envelope gets bigger, and you can tackle bigger and bigger challenges down the road. You could start eating different types of food. Like if you can start eating the cuisine that you're going to be eating when you move to your new country, if that's available where you are right now,
Doing these little changes, changing the way you eat, changing the way you interact with strangers.
Brains
All these little things cause subtle changes in your brain, and that teaches you to handle uncertainty. And this prepares you, this primes your brain for moving abroad and assimilating to a new culture and maybe a new language as well.
You can also invest in yourself by reading more books or reading books about your chosen country. You could watch videos on YouTube about your chosen destination. That's easy.
If you want to learn a foreign language, now is the perfect time to take a course. You can go to skillshare.com, udemy.com, that's UDEMY.com. YouTube, of course, has courses you could take and video series on language learning. There's no shortage of materials where they allow you to learn a new skill, not just a new language. You can join online communities of people who are doing what you're going to do or have already done what you want to do.
They're on Facebook. There are Reddit sub-forums. There's other social media outlets as well. You can take advantage of those. Finally, do something, take action even if it's messy. For example, 10 years ago, visiting Belize on my own for the first time. I was there eight days. Went quite well, almost without a hitch.
But even if something did happen, something awkward happened, I would've been able to handle it just fine. Like, on my way back to the United States, having to pay extra for my imported wine and having to check it, even though Belize let me have it as a carry-on, those little inconveniences.
So, take action. Don't worry about perfection. You'll be fine. You'll survive. You'll have a story to tell. And you'll have more skills, and you'll have pushed the envelope, and you'll be able to take on bigger and bigger challenges down the road. So stop waiting for the perfect time. There's no perfect time to do anything.
Remember when you became a parent, it wasn't the perfect time, but you adjusted, you rose to the occasion, you adapted. So if you know where you want to go, book that scouting trip. Start learning that language, if you need to. Learn about visa requirements in your country of choice. Every action you take is going to build momentum for you, and momentum will be what carries you on through this whole thing.
As you prepare to move to another country, momentum is what turns dreams into reality.
CLOSING
To sum everything up, look, I know, I get it. Change is scary. Nobody wants change, especially if it's been forced upon them by an outside source. But the scarier thing is wasting 5, 10, 15, or even more years in the same old pattern that isn't really where you want to be or what you want to do, but momentum is keeping you stuck.
If there's one thing to take away from this video, it's that your comfort zone is keeping you broke and stuck and you, and only you have the keys to break out. You just gotta push past your fears and take action, even if it's only one thing. Getting your first passport.
That's a huge step in the right direction. That's relatively straightforward and easy to do. It just takes a bit of leg work, and I have a video for that and a written handout for that as well. So tell me in the comments, what's one small step you could do right now today to get yourself started on your journey to a better future for yourself?
