Comfort Zones are neither Comfortable nor Zoned. Discuss.

Having broken out of so many of my own personal "comfort zones", I have lately begun to sincerely wonder whoever named these booby-traps comfort zones.  While we're in them, we may find them "familiar," but most of us would agree that some higher part of our consciousness does NOT find them COMFORTABLE.  In all reality, every time we're forced to think about what it is we're doing (or purposefully NOT doing), the fact is it makes us particularly UNcomfortable, fidgety even, and we look to change the mental channel we're on because we really don't want to be thinking about this.  Furthermore, a zone is more or less defined as "A [place] distinguished from adjacent parts by a distinctive feature or characteristic."  I don't know about all of you, but my experience with "comfort zones" is that the edges of said "zones" are nebulous, ever-shifting (usually widening in a way that, perversely, constricts us), and extremely DIFFICULT to define.  A more apropos metaphor might be quicksand.  You can't see them, even when you're right on top of one, you don't know you're in one until it's too late and you're already being sucked down, and every panicked movement you make only causes you to sink faster.  So you hold very still, and hope to stave off the inevitable suffocation for as long as possible.  Doesn't that sound more accurate?

Whatever you want to call them, these booby-traps and tiger-pits along the road of life catch all of us sooner or later, and usually they catch us because, as I mentioned in my last post, we're not purposefully moving through life, we're meandering.  We assume that, as long as we're moving forward, we're progressing.  That logic is extraordinarily flawed.  Consider that the road of life is neither a well-laid path, nor does it have a map, nor a single, absolute destination (the journey cliche).  A little bit of wandering is good, right?  It lets you discover new places.  Not having a plan, however, not having any idea where you're going, or most importantly WHY, is NOT good.  It's this constant, pointless meandering that stops us from ever starting our journeys, and destroys our progress on the road of life, and digs us so deeply into a rut that we can no longer even see the road we were on.

So how do we break free?

The conundrum with these booby traps is that one usually just leads to another.  Pretty soon you've fallen into these traps in a number of areas of your life; maybe it's the suffocation of suburbia and your 9-5 job.  Maybe it's your perpetual bachelor (or bachelorette)-hood and the ever-present weekend-long partying that was cool in your 20's but is getting pathetic, and health-degrading, into your 30's.  Maybe it's your high-pressure, high-paying job doing something you're good at, but don't love, and all those late nights keeping you from seeing your family.  Pick your poison, folks.  The point is, it's a domino affect, and you have to find a way to make it stop; to take your First Step.

For me, as I mentioned before, my First Step was actually just realizing the desperate state of mind I found myself in.  Simply admitting to myself I couldn't take it any more was Step One.  It was an involuntary step, one you take only to catch yourself from falling, but it was in that act of moving my foot, reaching out to catch myself and feeling firm ground under my feet for the first time, that I realized I had some serious climbing to do.  I wanted OUT.  NOW.  As I mentioned, for me, knowing the next step was easy.  I was trapped in my body as much as I was in my mind, and I wanted to lose weight, and as you all know, I called my personal trainers.  In this action, I halted the booby-trap domino-effect, but I started a NEW domino effect.  As a coworker of mine summed it up to me recently, "You're just not willing to settle anymore."  She's right.  If you want to lose weight, if you want change, this is the mindset you must develop.  This is at the crux of why you gained weight in the first place, and this is why all my talk of midlife crises is really relevant to 99% of you. 

You've just been SETTLING.  You've been accepting whatever life's given you and passively deciding that it's good enough.

IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN THE STATUS QUO.

You are worth more than those fucking shit-tastic cheeseburgers you feed yourself and actually think taste good (abstain from junk food for a year; jesus, those things don't even taste like FOOD, guys!).  You are worth more than that couch that has a permanent imprint of your ass on it.  You are worth more than those weak excuses that you hate to exercise (the truth is, your body LOVES exercise!  You just haven't learned that about yourself yet!), that you'll "start tomorrow", that you "just don't have time".

YOU DON'T HAVE TIME NOT TO HAVE TIME.  EVERY DAY YOU'RE DYING, A LITTLE BIT, AND EVERY DAY THAT YOU'RE UNHEALTHY, YOU'RE DYING A HELL OF A LOT FASTER THAN YOU OUGHT TO BE.

Maybe you've admitted that much to yourself, but if you really are committed, why did you wait until 1/1/10 to make a change?  If you were THAT READY to change, why didn't you start THE MOMENT you knew you needed to?  Why wait for some stupid, irrelevant, random day?  You know why?  You're still making excuses, that's why.  You're still SETTLING.  Real momentum, real motivation, isn't a New Year's Resolution.  It's not a next-Monday, or an after-the-holidays.  Real momentum is "I can't do this any more, the buck stops HERE, I change TODAY!"  That is the mindset you need to have, because folks, this journey is NOT going to be easy on you.  As much as you'll have to force your body to change, you'll be forcing your mind to change even more.  Physical transformations occur from the inside out, not just physiologically but psychologically.  Your head has got to be in this game.  You have to want this win.   You have to truly believe your life depends on this win.

Because it does. 

My next step was to pick a diet and exercise plan and commit to it.  In my next post I'm going to discuss a few of my recommendations for you.  These will be programs that can be used by all fitness levels, by all personality and body types, by everyone.  Your goal right now might just be to lose weight, but I guarantee, as your fitness level increases, as your energy levels increase, as your muscles begin to develop and define, your goals will morph.  You won't want to just settle for a lower weight.  You'll start to want MORE, and you'll start to believe you can achieve it.  You'll want to train for a marathon or climb a mountain or hike or rock climb or swim or on and on and on.  You are going to change, and these programs will help you every step of the way.  If you do drop that weight and are in great physical shape and that's enough for you, these programs will also help you simply maintain that level.  You need to be ready to commit to it, though.  Reading this post, right now, you need to know, in your heart of hearts, that even if my next post says you have to work out for two hours every day and live off of tofu and lettuce, that it doesn't matter, you will do it.  You need to be desperate.

You need to be ready for this.  Because "Comfort Zones" are the most uncomfortable place you can be, but they can be even MORE uncomfortable to leave.  So steel yourselves, my friends; we're about to say goodbye to them forever!