What It Means To Have Confidence To Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Having confidence to step outside of your comfort zone means you’re always prepared to try and experience new things in life. Your comfort zone is a pretty awesome and enjoyable place – that’s why it’s called the “comfort” zone! However, staying in a comfortable position in life constantly isn’t always a good thing. 

When you never leave your comfort zone, you never give yourself a chance to experience anything new or unfamiliar. Think about all the people, places, and things in your life that currently make up your comfort zone. 

At some point, you had to experience all those people, places, and things for the first time. Without that initial interaction or experience with them, you wouldn’t have learned to enjoy them and become comfortable with them. 

This is why having enough confidence to exit your comfort zone is such an important part of being a human being. Every time you exit the comfort zone, you give yourself a chance to let your personal world grow and develop into something greater and more complete. 

5 Key Benefits Of Having Confidence To Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Strengthening your confidence in stepping outside your comfort zone comes with a variety of benefits.

1| You will stop being intimidated or frightened by a challenge. 

With confidence to step outside your comfort zone comes great strength. Since you aren’t as hesitant to try something new, you don’t experience as much fear or intimidation when faced with a new challenge. 

Rather than viewing something new as a threat to your comfort zone, you develop more of an adventurous attitude. You see facing a new challenge as a chance to learn something new or have a fresh experience, so you’re more likely to embrace it rather than turning away from it. 

2| You’ll experience a lot of personal satisfaction. 

Variety is the spice of life. With confidence to step outside your comfort zone, you’ll experience plenty of zesty, spicy variety to keep your life interesting and exciting. Over time, this increases your overall satisfaction with how your life is going because it creates a great balance. 

The balance you experience is one where you have a strong sense of your comfort zone and a strong sense of confidence to leave it when necessary. This is a source of great satisfaction – because you know your comfort zone is there when you need it and you have that sense of adventure, you live a satisfying life that offers both stability and excitement.

3| You build up your overall self-confidence. 

The more you exit your comfort zone, the stronger your self-confidence becomes. Learning how to be confident in stepping outside your comfort zone requires a lot of personal strength. 

As you flex that personal strength more frequently, you’ll begin to develop a sense of comfort in stepping outside your comfort zone. These type of confidences work hand-in-hand to support each other: As you begin to push yourself to step outside your comfort zone more, it improves your self-confidence, and vice versa. 

4| You learn a lot about yourself. 

Any time you step outside your comfort zone, you learn a little bit about yourself. Trying new things gives you a chance to learn more about your personal strengths, your life goals, and your resiliency. 

Every time you use your confidence to step outside your comfort zone, you give yourself an opportunity to learn a little more about yourself. Let that journey into self-discovery surprise you! 

5| You get a lot more comfortable with handling challenging situations. 

Often, stepping outside of your comfort zone results in a challenge. Outside of your comfort zone, everything can feel a little more difficult than usual. Learning how to step out of your comfort zone confidently improves your ability to handle challenging situations with more ease. 

15 Tips To Strengthen Your Confidence In Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

It is possible to develop a stronger sense of confidence in stepping outside your comfort zone. Because leaving your comfort zone can feel very frightening, learning how to embrace it confidently requires practice to perfect. 

To develop a stronger sense of confidence that you can step outside your comfort zone, consider the following strategies:

1| Avoid living a stagnant life.

People who never leave their comfort zones live pretty boring and predictable lives. Since they never leave the comfort zone, they always know what to anticipate in their lives; they typically follow the same routines and patterns each day with little to no variation or excitement. 

When nothing in your life ever changes, you enter a state called stagnancy. You may have heard the word “stagnant” used to describe an unmoving body of water – a stagnant pool of water has no movement or flow, so the water simply sits there, becoming dirty, clouded, and smelly over time. Your life can experience a similar effect if you stay in your unmoving and unchanging comfort zone all the time. 

Having confidence to try new things and exiting your comfort zone allows you take the types of risks that can result in great rewards and allow you to greatly excel in life. 

2| Adopt a sense of adventure. 

Because you aren’t living a stagnant life, your confidence to step outside your comfort zone ensures you’ll go on a variety of exciting personal adventures. Between trying new activities, visiting new places, and meeting new people, you develop a taste for going on new adventures. 

Learning how to reframe your actions as “going on a new adventure” rather than “exiting my comfort zone into the unknown” can make embracing this type of confidence a little easier (and more fun).

3| Start viewing yourself as a collector of personal skills and different types of knowledge. 

Having the confidence to step outside your comfort zone serves as an excellent teacher. Because you’re going on so many new adventures and trying new things, you learn a lot of new skills and information. 

Rather than being limited to what you already know as a part of your comfort zone, the idea of signing up for a new class on a strange topic or teaching yourself a new skill shouldn’t intimidate you – instead, embrace the opportunity to learn more and add new skills to your arsenal of personal knowledge. Every time you challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone, you give yourself a chance to add more to your personal skills and knowledge.

4| Take things slowly. 

As you begin venturing outside your comfort zone, don’t feel like you need to go on a big, extreme adventure on your first attempt. Instead, take things slowly and give yourself a little time to acclimate to those feelings of discomfort.

Over time, you’ll feel your confidence rising. By initially limiting your experience with exiting your comfort zone, you’ll feel a bit more at ease with the idea of feeling temporary discomfort when trying new things.

5| Seek out other folks who are trying the same new experiences as you are.

There are support groups for just about everything. If you’re looking to try something new, consider finding a group of other people who are also attempting the same new thing. 

For example, if you are considering exiting your comfort zone to find a new exercise class, sign up for a class geared towards beginners. In this situation, you’ll be trying this new experience with other folks who are also exiting their comfort zones – this camaraderie can boost your confidence. 

6| Look toward your support system for a little extra help.

When you’re about to exercise confidence and step outside your comfort zone, don’t forget to reach out to your close friends and family members. The tried-and-true members of your support group are excellent to have nearby when you’re exiting your comfort zone. 

Since you know you can trust these folks to be a sort of supportive “life line” as you venture out into new, unknown territory, knowing your support system is there for an extra boost of help can raise your confidence. 

7| Give yourself permission to make a mistake (or two).

Not all adventures outside of your comfort zone will end well – in fact, some of these may end in a flat out failure. However, it’s important to embrace the fact that mistakes are going to happen….especially when you’re giving yourself an opportunity to try something new! 

As you enter a new situation, understanding that mistakes are normal and OK to make will help ease any discomfort you’re feeling. Sometimes you’ll discover something wonderful, and other times, you’ll leave the adventure less than impressed. Whether your adventure into something new ended well or badly, consider it a learning experience.

8| Don’t fall under the impression that you need to be immediately good at something new you’re trying for the first time.

Sometimes people fall for the misconception that they must be perfectly skilled at something the first time they try it. If they aren’t, they may shy away from the activity completely afterward, never attempting to do it again. 

It’s OK to decide something new you tried isn’t really interesting or “for you,” but if you abandon something new from the start because you weren’t skilled at it immediately, you’re missing a chance to develop your skills. 

Many new activities require practice and understanding that your first attempt may not be good at all is an essential part of boosting your confidence to get outside your comfort zone in the first place.

9| Remember that things within your personal comfort zone are outside of someone else’s. 

When you need a confidence boost to step outside your comfort zone, it’s important to remember that the activities, places, and people you consider to be a major part of your own comfort zone aren’t a part of everyone else’s. 

Everybody’s comfort zone is unique. In order to expand your comfort zone, you must be willing to step outside of it to learn and experience new things. However, it’s sometimes intimidating to think that you’re capable of doing this. 

When these thoughts fight against your confidence, remember that you’ve already battled against your comfort zone before (that’s how you developed a unique comfort zone in the first place!). 

10| Look for the positives in any new situation. 

It’s easy to focus on the negatives of any situation. Humans tend to have a natural bend toward the negative possibilities – this is called having a negativity bias. Your negativity bias has a purpose: In nature, a negativity bias helps you err on the side of caution. 

You are less likely to take a dangerous risk because you could get hurt, for example, so you allow your negativity bias to keep you out of danger.

However, it’s important to focus on the positives of new situations when it involves exiting your comfort zone. While some negative things can happen, you understand that there are also equal possibilities that positive things can happen. 

11| Begin thinking of the areas outside of your comfort zone as your “growth zone.”

As soon as you get outside of your comfort zone, real progress and learning can begin. Rather than feeling scared of what could happen outside your comfort zone, reframe your thinking to call that area the “growth zone” instead.

Changing your perspective on how you see that space outside your comfort zone is a great way to begin acclimating yourself to feeling more confident about stepping outside your comfort zone. 

12| Understand that your comfort zone is made up of many different levels and categories.

Think of your comfort zone as a big mansion with lots of rooms. Each room houses a specific part of your comfort zone. For example, one room may contain your close friends. Another room may contain your favorite foods. The next room may contain your favorite hobbies, and so on. 

When you’re experimenting with stepping outside your comfort zone, remember that you don’t need to leave all your rooms at the same time. For example, while it may be time for you to leave your financial comfort zone room, you can still spend time in your best friend room or hobbies room – trying to leave all your rooms at once can be overwhelming for your confidence. 

13| Attempt to do some of your everyday tasks a little differently. 

A great way to build some confidence in stepping outside your comfort zone is to try doing some of your everyday activities a little differently. Making these tiny changes is a great way to build a foundation for making larger changes later.

For example, some small changes you can make include:

• Trying a new dish at your favorite restaurant
• Taking a spontaneous trip to a new city
• Exploring a new hobby
• Learning a new skill
• Taking a different route to work
• Buying a wearing a totally new style of outfit
• Color your hair
• Rearrange your furniture
• Paint a room in your house in a color totally different from what you usually choose
• Tell someone a secret
• Go out by yourself
• Say hit to a stranger
• Do something that you fear a little bit

These are all low-stakes ways to build confidence by taking a small step outside your comfort zone. While they aren’t too risky, they give you a chance to learn and grow in small ways.

14| Find a creative outlet you enjoy and practice it often.

Being creative is a wonderful way to practice stepping outside your comfort zone. Any sort of creative venture – whether you’re painting, crafting, writing poetry, or building models – gives you a chance to take risks by expressing yourself in a new and creative fashion. 

Anytime you’re being creative or artistic, you’re learning a lot about yourself in the process. Creativity requires a lot of effort and self-discovery, so often, this means you’re leaving your personal comfort zone to better express your feelings and emotions through art. 

15| Get excited about taking risks! 

Often, when people think about taking risks it triggers feelings of fear and apprehension. Humans fear the unknown. But when you are trying to build your confidence in stepping outside of your comfort zone it’s important to change your mindset about taking risks. 

If you perceive risk taking as a negative scary venture you will not take risks, but if you begin to look at all the positives surrounding risk taking you can reprogram your mind to see it as the valuable think that it is. And when you perceive risk taking as a positive idea you will be much more confident in stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Get excited about taking risks! The payoffs are incredible and you may just find this to be your favorite new activity!

Benefits Of Taking Risks

• You will never grow while safe in your comfort zone
• Learn about yourself
• Learn to face and overcome challenges
• Learn to face your fears
• Build inner-strength
• Endless opportunities can present themselves
• Builds creativity
• Promotes resilience
• Promote engagement in life
• Feel pride
• Feel a sense of accomplishment
• Stop boredom in your life
• Reach higher
• Thrive in mind, body, and spirit
• Opportunity to change your life 
• Risk Satisfies And Builds Confidence In General – There is nothing more satisfying than taking a risk and feeling the power within you that comes from taking that step. The feeling of personal satisfaction is the ultimate reward. The greatest risk is not taking any risks at all. 

Case Study: Understanding What Confidence to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone Looks Like

Examining an example of a person who has confidence to step outside of their comfort zone can help you better understand what that type of confidence looks like. To gain a better understanding of this type of confidence, consider Devon.

Devon was just offered an exciting professional opportunity. Devon was offered a new job – it involves a big raise, lots of new opportunities to learn and grow, and allows him to move up into a higher ranking position. 

While Devon is excited about making more money and working in a new role, there is one aspect of this development that frightens him: He will need to move to a new city eight hours away from his current home to accept it. 

Everything Devon knows is in his current city. His best friends, his family, his coworkers at his current job, his favorite hangouts, and the only home he’s ever known are all in this city. The idea of having to move away and start fresh in a new place is incredibly frightening for him. 

Whenever Devon thinks about moving to this brand new city and leaving his home, he feels paralyzed with fear – what if he’s too lonely in this new city? What if he has a hard time meeting new friends and finding places where he belongs? His confidence in this new opportunity feels very shaken by all the possibilities for things to go wrong. 

However, Devon realizes that there is a lot of potential in accepting this new job. A higher position gives him tons of professional learning and growth opportunities. Also, the higher salary is a major plus. 

Devon decides to have some serious conversations with members of his support system before making a final decision. He speaks to his closest family and friends to explain the situation to them and hear their thoughts on the matter. Although they’d be sad to see him move, they agree that the opportunity is amazing and that he needs to get outside of his comfort zone and go for it. 

Devon decides that stepping outside of his comfort zone is the best option in this situation. He knows that this transition will be exciting yet uncomfortable – learning how to navigate a new city and surroundings without his support system close by will be challenging, but unless he takes that plunge, he won’t be able to really embrace his new opportunity. 

After Devon decides to leave his comfort zone, he realizes some of his fears do come true. He does have a difficult time for the first couple weeks in his new city without his close friends and family nearby, but he finds ways to cope as he continues to explore his new surroundings. 

For example, he video chats and texts regularly with his friends and family members. Besides connecting with his support system, he also makes an effort to join a trivia club in his new city so he can begin meeting some new people, too. 

Despite taking this risk, he begins to see his confidence pay off. His new job was definitely worth taking the risk. He enjoys his new coworkers and his new position thoroughly. The new paycheck is nice, too – Devon is able to use his boost in salary to handle some debts. Devon also feels like he’s learning a lot of valuable new skills in his career field. 

The Bottom Line

Learning how to step outside of your comfort zone is a necessary part of living a life filled with learning, excitement, and growth. When you don’t step outside of your comfort zone, you never develop further as a human being. 

Exiting your comfort zone to try or experience something new can be frightening but gaining more confidence in this area is essential for human growth. 

Any time you try something new, you’re putting yourself in a position to learn, grow and excel in your life, so build your confidence and take those risks.