Complacency

"Comfort Zone" – What a wonderful zone to be in, while reading this itself I get so much of comfort feeling. But in reality, Is it really a wonderful zone to be in?. “You can grow only when you come out of Comfort Zone” – We read and hear this statement very often. We also know how important it is to grow. But even after knowing that are we ready to come out of our comfort zone?? We want comfort zone in everything, it starts right from 5-6 AM in the morning. We know that we have to start our day fresh and active, but when it comes to getting up from the bed L Snooze button is a like a boon for us. But we also know it is not so.

I was working in an account which gave me everything – Opportunity, recognition, growth, role, support, guidance. I worked for a wonderful leader, from whom I learnt a lot. After 4.5 years, I had to decide whether to continue or to make a move. Trust me, it was one of the toughest decision which I had taken in my career. I decided to move out. People ridiculed me for making that decision, even I was not 100% confident about my own decision.

During this confused phase of my life, I picked up a lesson from Rohit. We decided to change his school after he completed his 7^th grade. I was worried about how well he can adapt to the new school. To my surprise, I found that he never complained about what he is missing in the new school in comparison with his old school. Rather he started enjoying his new friends, new teachers, new environment etc. Every day he used to tell me what he liked in his new school. His focus was in finding what is better in his new school.

This helped me to make a decision to move out. Though I gained confidence by looking at Rohit, after being in one account for 4.5 years, moving out was like fish out of water. I was worried, upset and not clear about how I will manage and started going into my shell. The new account was so welcoming, they made me realize that I have not made any wrong choice. Though I had initial struggles in settling down, people in the new place supported and guided me so very well that I could gel with them easily.

On 1^st April 2015, my mentor gave me a target to achieve. Today I have crossed the first milestone to achieve the target. I could do that only because I decided to come out of my comfort zone. I would like to thank people who gracefully agreed to release me from the previous account and importantly people who accepted me in the new account with my limitations.

The lessons what I learnt from this whole episode are

1. Being complacent will not give you any growth. It rather stops your growth
2. The real fear is not due to the actual situation, but the imagination what we have about future. That is what stops us from taking a decision
3. Coming out of Comfort Zone doesn’t always mean that your next destination will be dark place, you have lot of good people around you. See, I have found many such people J

I found this to be strange and interesting: In any normal scenario, we think “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” but when it comes to making a decision to move, all of a sudden we feel this side is better and the other side is dark!!. Is it because of the fear we have in coming out of our comfort zone?