You have to go outside of your comfort zone in order to grow.

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” Ronald E. Osborn

There’s a term ‘comfort zone’ which refers to things you’re comfortable with. When you do things that you’re good at, things that you’ve mastered, you’re in your comfort zone. Most people are comfortable within their comfort zone, doing what they already know.

The problem with continually doing what you’re good at, staying within your comfort zone, is that you never learn anything new.

In order to grow and expand beyond your comfort zone, you need to challenge yourself. The best way to challenge yourself is by doing things you haven’t done before, or things you’re not good at. By going outside of your comfort zone. 

This is how children learn, by continually going out of their comfort zone. Be like a child. Become inquisitive. Ask questions and be anxious to try new things. If you hold onto the natural curiosity that you had as a child, you’ll continue to grow and to expand your horizon. Never let fear of the unknown hold you back as an adult. Children are attracted to the unknown, and each new discovery helps them grow.

Bring that child within you out and let curiosity take over. Challenge yourself to learn something new. Go outside of your comfort zone, and try to master something new. In much the same way you grew as a child, by going out of your comfort zone you’ll continue to grow as an adult.

Failing means you’re a trailblazer, paving the road for others to follow.

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.” Dr. David M. Burns
If you strive for perfection, your chances for succeeding a very slim. If you strive for success, your chances of achieving your goal are much greater. When defining your goal, aim for success first. Once you achieve that goal, then you can aim for perfection.

Success is often built by trying and failing, over and over again. You learn from these failures. If you never fail, what you learn will be very limited. You can duplicate what others have done by learning from their mistakes, but you will never surpass what they did.

It is only when you strike out on your own, into unchartered territory, that you can exceed beyond what others have done. That is when you’ve gone as far as you can go, by using the failures of others as a guide, and begin setting the trail for others to follow, to use your failures as a guide for their success.

 

Failing and being wrong means you tried something different. Always succeeding means that you are doing the same thing over and over again, it means that you prefer the safe road. Never be afraid to fail, or to be wrong.

It simply means that you’re a trailblazer. You just need to remember to learn from these failures, and not to keep repeating them.

Failure is an option for too many people these days

“People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else.” Unknown

There is nothing inherently wrong with failing. It is how we learn and grow. Very few people are actually successful in their first attempt at anything. We usually try something one way and if it doesn’t work, make a few changes, then try again. That doesn’t mean that we’re failures.

There are people who try to accomplish a certain goal, or task, over and over again. Even if they fail a hundred times, they continue trying. They are not failures. If they accept defeat and give up on that goal or task, they are still not failures. What is important is that they tried as best they could and realized it was something they themselves are unable to accomplish. That is where the honor is, to accept the fact that you cannot succeed 100 percent of the time, to acknowledge that something is beyond your abilities.

When you accept that premise, you learn from it. You learn to change your approach, to try a different tact. You don’t repeat the same steps with the next goal that you did with the previous one, if you know they didn’t work before.

What we see in politics is the exact opposite. No one accepts responsibility for a failure. Mayors, Governors, Congressmen, Senators and even Presidents do this all the time. They try to live up to promises they made. When they are unsuccessful, they find someone, or something, else to blame. When the next task or goal comes along, they try the same approach which failed earlier, again. When that task fails, they again pass the blame elsewhere.

This is why many politicians are failures. Not because they tried something and couldn’t get it done. They are failures because they couldn’t do something and placed the blame elsewhere.

Nothing is impossible. There are many politicians, and individuals, who’ve overcome tremendous odds and failures to achieve success. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Roland Reagan, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey, Vincent Van Gogh, Dr. Seus, Stephen King, JK Rowling, Monet, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth and even Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

All of them succeeded when others before them couldn’t or when told they should go home. They didn’t go back home, saying ‘well, these people said no’. They kept trying. They tried a different approach if they needed to change. They used the same approach if they knew they were right. Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times to come up with the light bulb before he finally succeeded.

You will never be a failure when you take responsibility for your destiny into your own hands. Passing the blame onto others is an easy way out, and a sure sign of a failure.

Goals and ambition are not for everyone

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.” J.C. Penny

In order for the world to function, all types of people are needed. Stock clerks are needed just as much as doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and craftsmen.

A world full of overly ambitious people would be a very sad world indeed. Many people are content with their lot in life. They are content to let others do the leading, the strategizing and the planning, while they do what is required of them.

While there are many who want to make history, many of the store clerks of the world are content simply being part of history. They are content working, and then devoting their energy and resources on their family and friends. Sometimes the overly ambitious lose sight of the other important things in life. More often than not, they don’t lost sight, but decide that ambition is more important to them than friends and family.

Having an ambitious dream, wanting to make history, is no easy matter. It requires sacrifice, dedication and lots of hard work. In order to be able to set goals, you have to know where you want to be, where your want to go. You need to have a dream. Setting a goal helps you reach that dream. People who set goals succeed because they know what they want, and the goals give them achievable targets to strive for.

Goals are like mile markers. They tell you if you’re making progress, if you’re going in the right direction, towards your final destination. Setting goals that are impossible to reach would only frustrate you, eventually leading towards frustration and depression. The secret to setting goals is to look at them as landings on a flight of stairs. If you want to walk to the top of the tallest building, set your first goal to reaching the first, second or third landing. Once there, you set your next goal to reach another landing within reach. Going one landing at a time allows you to track your progress, to see if you need to adjust your strategy, and to set your next goal. By continually setting difficult, yet   achievable, goals, you’re able to realize a seemingly impossible dream. If you try to climb to the top of the building in one try, you’ll wear yourself out and risk the chance of never reaching the top.

If you decide to get married and have kids, one of your goals will be to ensure your kids have everything they need to succeed. To do that, you need to start setting goals as early as possible. If you don’t set any goals, you’re letting the environment determine what happens to your children. Is that a risk you’re willing to take? To get into a good college, a parent has to plan long before your kids get into high school. It’s okay for your children to be stock clerks if that is what they choose to be. It’s not okay for them be stock clerks because you never set any goals while raising them, giving them no choice but to be stock clerks.

The secret to success

“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture…Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.” Norman Vincent Peale

What this quote means is that to succeed, you need to see yourself succeeding in your mind. Always have it in your mind that you will succeed, always remember it, and remove any doubts or roadblocks to your success.

Doubt is what kills many peoples dreams. The most successful people never doubted themselves, and knew they would one day succeed in reaching their goals.

Knowing you will succeed and removing all doubt from your mind is half the battle. Once you are able to do that, you’ll start finding yourself in the right places, at the right times. This is why less talented people are able to go further than many with talent: they do not doubt themselves, and see themselves succeeding in their mind.

There are those who dream, and those who do, which are you?

“Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.” Anonymous

What this quote means is that you have to do more than just dream about accomplishing something great, you have to take steps to make it happen. Constantly dreaming about something will never get you any closer to your dream. At some point, you have to wake up and go from dreaming about it, to actually doing it.

The world is full of dreamers. Everyone knows people who woke up too late, only to discover that life had passed them by because they never did anything to make their dreams happen. They slept their life away, dreaming one day after another of doing something great, while those who faced reality were busy making their dreams happen.