Push your limits - Get out of the comfort zone
Posted by Admin on June 18, 2008 under General | 
4 Comments to Read
Being in the comfort zone is the primary cause for laziness in most of the people. It is similar to the gravitational field. You got to do some real work against it in order to break its barriers.
It’s happy and comfortable in your present comfort zone but you have to expand your comfort zone to realize what you are truly capable of.
You must push your limits to get into the new levels of the comfort zone to experience the real fun.
If you can’t, you must. If you must, you can. - by Tony Robbins
I arrived at the training center at about 9:30 am and reported at the front desk. This was my first job as IT trainer and I was very much tensed as well as excited. In about 5 minutes, a woman came out and introduced herself as a training manager. She then mentioned that I was late for the training and she was letting me go because it was my first day of training. The serious look she gave at me clearly indicated that she has a very low tolerance level for such kind of mistakes.
She took me inside the office and introduced to the all other trainees. We soon became very good friends and I especially like one of the trainees, who was local to that place where we were attending the training. I noticed that his voice was very low and he was barely speaking.
She handed us our training schedule which was already prepared for us.
Then we were told to get inside a class room to attend our training session.
The first training session continued for about two hours. We took it easy and casually attended the session and also made note of some points given by the trainer.
Immediately after we finished the class the training manager came in and handed out some papers and told us to take an exam for the class that we attended.
It was a real shock for all of us. How can anyone expect an exam within the first two hours of training? She left the room without even waiting for our answer. When we looked at the questions, we had another shock. The questions were so complex and it covered almost every word that was taught in the class.
We could somehow finish the exam with a lot of difficulties. She again came in and started going through our answer sheets. By seeing her face, we can easily figure out that she was not at all happy with our performance. Surprisingly, she hadn’t mentioned anything about our test.
Later she called me onto the platform and told me to teach everything from the training session we just took two hours ago. I already have a lot of stage fear and we just had enough shocks in the first few hours itself. How can she expect us to remember everything and reproduce it without even going through it once?
All of us have the only thought in our mind. “It’s impossible to complete this training”.
I myself could see my voice shivering as I went through a couple of sentences that I remembered from the session. Then, she invited other trainees and they too had the same experience as me. She told the trainee who has a low voice to speak up and he agreed to do it. Everyone in the room felt that he is going to have a tough time as it not easy to change anyone’s voice.
It was about 1 PM when we had a chance for little breath at our lunch.
Our afternoon session was not much different. We had to go through another two training sessions, then an exam followed by our lectures. By end of the day we were told that we should have to go through the same exams on the next day as we didn’t do well.
We were totally exhausted when we got back our hotel and it was almost 8 pm. We somehow finished our dinner until 10 pm and then guess what?
We started preparing for the next day’s exam.
The next day was entirely different. Surprisingly we were able to do everything perfect unlike the previous day. We were able to concentrate well in the training session, took notes of each and every detail. We also were able understand much better and reproduced everything in our minds each time the trainer halts a few seconds for holding his breath. Once the session was over we could see an amazing difference in our confidence levels.
We all had the same feeling and all know that we were ready to take any kind of test and we did. We could answer all the questions in the test and were able to see a little smile on the face of the same lady who warned us last day.
When we were called on to the platform for the lecture where we were able to reproduce everything which we never even thought we could. Once everyone is done with their lecture, the trainee who has the low voice was called on to the stage. All the others just know that he cannot talk loud and were sympathetic about his voice.
Then, the most shocking thing happened. It was like a miracle. The guy from whom we cannot hear the voice even from two feet, amazingly started to talk loud. Everyone couldn’t believe their ears for quite some time. I am not hearing the lecture and I need not as we already heard it so many times. I am just watching the guy who is talking with impossible confidence levels. I am just seeing how we are getting transformed.
I used to believe it takes months to years to make a change in human behavior. This all happened in one day!
The only one person who did not have any change any feelings is the training manager who was looking after us. She behaved as if this is quite normal for her.
This incident changed not only me but also everyone who participated in that training.
I started believing that we will never push our limits unless it is seriously demanded by the situation.
It is like lifting weights. In the beginning, we start with 10 lb. weights. Within a few days we see our muscles growing and we’re soon comfortable lifting 15 lbs. If we keep on lifting 15 lb, the muscle will stop growing after a few days. In order for us to continue muscle growth, we must continue increasing the weight. We have to push our limits and keep on changing the weights every few days for us to keep growing.
Once out of the comfort zone, things may seem painful and impossible at first, but it will soon become our new comfort zone. To step out of this new comfort zone, we again have to push ourselves to enter the next zone and reach new levels. This growth cycle should never halt. If it halts, we will never be able to know our true potential.
I also recommend an inspiring article from a blog by Go Daddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons. Click the link below:
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