2008 June » Lazy to Work

Archive for June, 2008

Push your limits – Get out of the comfort zone

Comfort zone is the primary cause for laziness in many people.

Its works similar to the gravitational field. You got to do some real work against it in order to break the barriers and step out of comfort zone.

It always feels happy and comfortable in your current situation but you have to expand your comfort zone to realize your true potential.

You must push your limits to step into the new levels of the comfort zone in order to experience the real fun.

“If you can’t, you must. If you must, you can” – by Tony Robbins

I would like to share a real life experience of mine that might help in understanding the comfort zone concept.

It was year 1995. It was my first job as IT trainer. I was sent to a to our corporate office for training.

I reached the training center at about 9:30 am and reported at the front desk. I was very much tensed also was excited.

In about 5 minutes, a woman came from inside and introduced herself as a training manager.

She gave a serious look at me and warned that I was late 30 minutes late. She also said I should never be late again. I clearly understood that she has a very low tolerance for mistakes.

She took me into the office and introduced to the all other new employees who were already there for training.

I soon became familiar with all of them.

I noticed one of the employee was little shy and was barely speaking.

She handed us our training agenda which was already prepared for us.

Later we were told to get into a class room to attend the training lessons.

The first training session took about two hours. We took it easy and casually attended the session.

Once it is done, the training manager came in and handed out some papers and told us that we’re going to take a test from the class we just attended.

It was just a shock for all of us. How can anyone expect to take a test immediately after a class and that too without a notice?….

She left the room without even waiting for any answer. When we looked at the questions in the test, we had another shock.

The questions were so complex and demanding. We almost need to reproduce each and every word that was spelled in the lesson we had.

We somehow finished the exam.

She came in again with the corrected answer sheets. By seeing her face, we could easily figure out that she isn’t happy and that was true.

Surprisingly,… she hadn’t spoken anything.

Later, she called everyone onto the stage and asked me to speak out about the same training session.

We were freaked out.

All of us had same thought in our minds…. “It’s impossible to survive this training!”

I myself could see my voice shivering as I tried to teach the lesson.

Later the trainer called the guy who was shy. He had a low voice and was did not do well.

She told him he must learn to speak up.

Our afternoon session wasn’t much different. We had to go through another two trainings, then a test followed by our own lecture.

We were told we must to take up the same tests again as we didn’t do it well.

By end of the day we were totally exhausted and we got back to our hotel almost by 8 pm.

We were so tired and somehow finished our dinner by 10 pm…. and then,…. guess what?…

… We started preparing for the next day’s test.

The next day was completely different.

Unlike the previous day,… surprisingly, we’re able to do everything well .

We were able to concentrate well on the lessons, took notes in detail. We also were able understand the topics much better.

By the end of the day, we could see an amazing difference in our confidence levels.

We were ready to face any kind of test and…. we did.

We did very well in the test.

We were able to see some smile on the face of the same lady who wasn’t happy at all a day before.

When we were called onto the stage for a lecture, no one hesitated and could reproduce everything.

It’s time for the trainee who was shy to get on to the stage. We never saw him talking loud and doubted if can do a trainer job.

It’s when, the most shocking thing happened !

It was like a miracle !

The guy from whom we cannot hear even from two feet, amazingly started talking so loud.

Everyone couldn’t believe themselves for quite some time. I wasn’t hearing the lecture and I didn’t think I need to.

I just learned a lesson !

I was just watching how the confidence levels grow with pressure.

I used to believe it takes months to years to make changes in the human behavior.

But, all of this happened in one day!

I was just realizing how to push the limits and step out of your comfort zone.

The only person who did not have change in any feelings is our training manager .

She behaved as if it’s quite normal for her.

I am sure the incident changed everyone in the training.

Everyone can step out of comfort zone once it’s seriously demanded by the situation.

It is similar analogy to lifting weights.

In the beginning, we start with 10 pounds weight. Within a few days we see our muscles getting stronger gets comfortable to 10 pounds. We need to push ourselves more weight like 15 pounds. If we keep on lifting 10 lb for ever (Comfort Zone), the muscles will never grow. In order for us to continue the muscle growth, we must continuously increase the weights.

So, ….We have to push our limits and keep on changing the weights every few days for us to keep growing.

Things which may seem painful and impossible at first, will become easy with you stepping out of comfort zone.

And it becomes our new comfort zone. We again have to push ourselves to enter the next zone levels.

The cycle should never halt. If it halts, you’ll get comfortable and cannot progress further.

Pushing your limits is always directly proportional to your growth.

If you stop it, you’ll never be able to know your true potential.

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Archive for June, 2008

Push your limits – Get out of the comfort zone

“If you can’t, you must. If you must, you can” – by Tony Robbins

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