Step Outside Your Comfort Zone
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4353When was the last time you tried something you had never done before? As creatures of habit, we tend to eat the same foods, take the same route home from work, and surround ourselves with the same people every day. There’s comfort in the familiar—that’s why we call it our "comfort zone.”
The child who learns to ride a bike, the grandmother who takes up oil painting, the student who enrolls in a difficult class—all leave their comfort zones to fulfill a dream. As a result, their lives became richer and their outlook brighter.
A nurse once asked several terminally ill patients to share any regrets they had at the end of their lives. She found that many felt they had not become everything they could have been—that they had left too many songs unsung. They wished they had lived up to their potential.1 By hanging back, afraid to try something new, we risk facing that same regret.
Often it’s as simple as deciding to be a better listener or to perform a small act of service every day. Speaking a kind word to a stranger, lifting someone’s spirits with a phone call—there are countless ways to try something new.
Once we take that step into the unknown—even if it’s a small step—we discover that our comfort zone was actually holding us back. The satisfaction of conquering our weaknesses, the joy of expanding our ability to serve others, will more than make up for any "discomfort.” We may even discover some truth in the phrase "Life begins where your comfort zone ends.”
1 See Susie Steiner, "Top Five Regrets of the Dying,” Guardian, Feb. 1, 2012, www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying; see also Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Of Regrets and Resolutions,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2012, 21–24.
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