I’m probably the first to say that life is all about living up to our potential. That growth comes when we’re willing to keep challenging ourselves, and to achieve our big goals we have to venture outside our comfort zone.
But what if you’re happy exactly where you are, doing exactly what you’re doing?
Does that mean you’re a failure?
Do you have to want continuous progress to be successful?
There’s a lot to be said for the state of contentment
I’ll be honest. I used to be frustrated by those I thought of as underachievers. People who despite their skills and talents did not feel compelled to keep striving to get better. ‘Are they just lazy?’ I thought, ‘How can they be happy as they are?’
Then I remembered my grandmother with what, from the outside, looked like an ordinary life. She worked hard all her life and woke up every day to run her little shop. She had friends and was known by everyone in our small town. She never travelled the world or had the best of anything and probably never had any desire to, yet she seemed to live a happy, contented life.
It was then I realised that the peace of contentment could be just as powerful as the constant drive to achieve.
But let’s face it, being happy to stay in your comfort zone isn’t exactly popular right now. It’s gotten a bad rap especially in this age of bigger and better goals, continuous self-improvement, and making big dreams a reality. Being content is equated with being lazy and lacking ambition and perhaps sometimes it is.
Yet a successful life can’t only be measured in terms of the number of goals we have and those we’ve achieved can it? Surely it has to be more than that.
You see I think just as it’s okay to want to strive for big goals it’s also okay to not feel the need to be more or do more. It’s okay to be satisfied with yourself just the way you are.
Because the comfort zone is that for a reason.
- It’s that place where you feel secure, able to express yourself naturally without censure.
- It’s where you can discover who you are and what works for you – the good, bad and ugly, your quirks, your weaknesses, and strengths.
- It’s also the place where you start to appreciate who you are and what you have and that can only be a good thing.
So should you stay in your comfort zone or should you venture outside?
Who knows?
Perhaps it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer.
Perhaps what really matters is making sure that whatever you do it’s not just because you feel pressured to or you’re afraid of what others think.
Whatever you do, do it because you want to, because it matters to you and because it adds to your life and others.
Whether you’re in the comfort zone or outside of it, surely being truly happy with who you are is the most important thing.