Step Out of Your Comfort Zone: 5 Steps to Get Out of Your Career Rut
Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to find a career that works for you
When was the last time you did something that scared you? The scariest thing I’ve done recently has probably been walking upstairs. While carrying T on my hip. While carefully balancing a tray of drinks and snacks for us…! Not exactly something you’d see in Cirque Du Soleil I know; but it would have made a mess if it went wrong!! Life hasn’t exactly been wild with excitement through the Covid-19 lockdown – can you tell?! Anyway, moving on. I’ve been chatting with some Mums recently who are currently considering a career change, and a massive step out of their comfort zone. You’ll probably agree that ranks as a higher risk than me walking up the stairs!!
Last week I shared a quote on my Facebook page asking what you’d do if you knew you couldn’t fail. I speak to so many working Mums who tell me they’re stuck in a rut, but that a career change feels too scary. So they refuse to step out of their comfort zone in their career. Putting it off for another day to find a career that works for them and their family. Just a little reminder if this is you: don’t forget, not making a decision is a decision.
Don’t get me wrong, comfort zones are brilliant. Your comfort zone keeps you safe. It keeps you comfortable. You know what to expect. It stops you making risky, bad decisions. Your comfort zone stops you from embarrassing yourself…
Thing is, comfort zones tend to stop you growing
Be honest. What’s the first thought you’d have if one of your Mum friends rang to tell you she had decided to stop her baby learning to crawl. She tells you there’s no way she will be allowed to learn to walk! What’s going through your head when she explains that it’s much safer to keep her baby swaddled. No nasty bumps. No horrible falls. No scraped knees. Perfectly safe.
What would your reaction be?
Imagine being that poor baby girl, not able to explore the world beyond her swaddle. Never taking those first wobbly steps. Sitting on the sidelines watching her friends go places she wants to go. Sure she’d be safe. But is that really the most important thing?
Your comfort zone might be safe, but it isn’t always the best place for you
I remember the day I qualified as a Certified Life Coach in January 2018. It was a big moment for me. There were feelings of pride, excitement, happiness, anticipation, but also a bit of regret.
The thing is, I actually knew I wanted to be a coach in 2015. But I didn’t do anything about it straight away because I was scared. I was scared I’d fail.
I came across coaching a few years after I graduated from Uni. It’s funny, often people feel super excited when they find a career they really want to go after. Not me! When I came across coaching, my heart sank. I loved it and knew it was for me. But I couldn’t see past the fact it cost a lot of money to train and as far as I was aware, you had to be self-employed to be a coach. Thanks, but no thanks!! It felt too scary to step out of my comfort zone in my career.
We couldn’t afford it and I knew nothing about business
Back then I could give you loads of reasons (hmm or were they excuses?) of why coaching wasn’t right for me. We would have to take out a loan to pay for the training, and I didn’t like the idea of being in debt. We had friends who ran their own businesses who worked so hard and barely saw their family, that didn’t sound fun!
Then there was the small (sometimes really loud) voice in the back of my head telling me it was a silly idea. “You’re not good enough to be successful as a coach”. “Who would want to hire someone who’s barely had a career themselves?”. “What is Adam going to say when you don’t make any money from your business?”. “What about when you fail and have to go back to your old job? How embarrassing!”
So I tried to forget about coaching
Have you ever had a niggling feeling when you know you need to make a change, but you just don’t want to? Back then, that was how I was feeling. I knew I needed to step out of my comfort zone when it came to my career, but it felt risky and overwhelming.
For me, my comfort zone was: being in full time employment, knowing how much money was coming in each month. Sticking with what I knew worked, in a job I knew I could do well. Not standing out from the crowd, barely any of my friends even knew what a Life Coach was at the time!
Staying in your comfort zone might feel easier for now, but might mean you miss out on something amazing
I’ve spoken to so many Mums who feel like they’re missing out on life since having children. Mums who feel stuck, but don’t know how to step out of their comfort zone and make a career change.
But it feels too risky to leave a comfortable job, which pays the bills.
It feels selfish to spend money on yourself to build your confidence, skills, knowledge and experience to get a job that works for you.
It feels scary to step out of your comfort zone in something as important as your career. What if it all goes wrong?
I like to think of stepping out of your comfort zone, as stretching yourself. Taking risks can feel a bit uncomfortable – like when you’re doing a new stretch at the gym, or reaching for the cereal at the back of the top cupboard. Then you do it. Once you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone (or seen how your arms really can stretch another 2 inches!!), you realise you’re a bit more flexible than you first thought.
5 steps to get out of your comfort zone in your career:
#1 Do your research
For me, there was a lot of fear around the unknown. I didn’t know loads about coaching, and I had no idea what setting up a business involved.
So I spent a lot of time on Google. It all got a bit overwhelming at first. Then I stopped looking at the big time coaches and comparing myself to them. I reminded myself that everyone starts somewhere. Where was I going to start? It began with answering some questions:
Why do I want to do this? What is it that appeals to me about the job? What skills do I need to be a successful coach? What knowledge and experience would be useful to have as a coach?
To answer those questions I needed to find out more about coaching. This research told me what I needed to know. Coaching was the next step for me.
Deep down, what do you really want your career to look like? Is there a dream career you haven’t allowed yourself to imagine going after? Try doing some more research on it. What elements would make it a good fit for you and your family?
#2 Get clear on what’s making you feel scared
Stepping into the unknown felt so so scary for me. I knew I wanted to be a coach, but I was scared of the change it would bring.
I had to change my thinking. Rather than focusing on absolutes, I shifted my thoughts to focus more on how I was feeling. For example, instead of telling myself “you’re not good enough to be successful as a coach”, I acknowledged how I was feeling: “I’m scared I won’t be able to help people”. Instead of asking myself “what about when you fail and have to go back to your old job?”, I realised my fear was: “I’m scared of what people will think of me”.
Have you ever heard the phrase “you can only change yourself”? It’s true, you have no control over anyone or anything outside of yourself. But you can change the stuff that you have control over – like how you think, and how you feel. So by flipping my focus to how I was feeling, rather than believing the lies I was telling myself, I put myself back in control.
The biggest thing holding me back was a fear of setting up my own business, which didn’t have to happen right away. That was something I could work up to.
One of the biggest reasons people don’t change career is fear of change. Even when they know their current job isn’t working for them. What thoughts in your head are holding you back from making a change in your career? Where are those thoughts coming from? What are you scared of? How can you address those fears?
#3 Make a plan
Once I was clear on what was making me feel scared, I considered the journey I would need to take to step out of my comfort zone. I broke it down into small baby steps. First step – find the money. Second step – pay for the course. Third step – do the course. Fourth step – make a plan of what to do with my new knowledge and skills.
I considered things that might happen that could throw me off course and tried to plan for them. I considered what I would do if we couldn’t find the money for the course. Through conversations with my husband, I made the commitment to myself that maybe that would delay things until we could afford it, but it wouldn’t stop me doing it.
For me, my focus was on taking the first step. Only considering the second step once I’d taken the first step. This was key for me. It stopped me getting too overwhelmed and deciding not to do it after all. I didn’t allow myself to get bogged down in the fear around starting my own business. I just focused on the next step I needed to take in that moment.
What is the first step you need to take to step away from your comfort zone? What fears could you put to the back of your mind for now, and revisit later, once you’ve started to build momentum?
#4 Tell other people
Once I had made the decision in my heart, I spoke to my husband about it. We discussed our hopes, fears, plans. He is amazing at looking at things pragmatically and supports me 100% which I’m so grateful for!
By telling other people about my plans, I was getting accountability. I knew my friends and family would ask me how my course was going, so it would be harder not to go through with it!! I hated the idea of having to tell them I’d changed my mind.
Saying that, I didn’t tell everyone what I was planning. Not at the beginning. Even well-meaning people can come along and stamp on your dreams by telling you why it might not work. It would only have taken one person sharing a statistic on how hard it is to stand out as a coach, to feed into all my fears again. Be wise about who you tell. But do gather a support network around you. It’s much easier to step out of your comfort zone in your career with supportive people around you!
Who is in your support network? Who can you share your hopes, fears and plans with? Think about your support network – who would cheer you on?
#5 Be kind to yourself and stay positive
I knew I wanted a career that really worked for me. So it was important for me to go for this opportunity. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard. It doesn’t mean I just forgot about all the things I was worried about. But I made the decision and jumped in.
While I was making the decision to change career, it was easy to revert back to telling myself all the reasons I couldn’t do it. Listening to that voice in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough and blah blah blah. It was really important for me to acknowledge these fears, but to gently push back and remind myself that I didn’t want to be in the same place in 5 years time.
For me, positivity was super important while I took the risk to move out of my comfort zone. I made the choice to focus more on the things I might gain, rather than on the things I might lose.
What if risk taking could feel more like an adventure? What do you stand to gain from stepping out of your comfort zone when it comes to your career?
Look at me now
If you’d told me a decade ago that I’d have my own business, I absolutely would not have believed you. My brother has always been business minded, not me. Mum and Dad still talk about the time he collected Christmas cracker toys and auctioned them to his friends in January!!
So long story short, I paid the money for the course. I started training in 2017. I set up my own business in 2018. It all worked out far better than I could have hoped, or planned for.
Around the time I paid for the coaching course, I applied for a job at a charity, where I could be employed as a coach. I’m still there now (part-time since becoming a Mum), supporting vulnerable people get jobs.
So before I’d even finished the course, I was offered a job as a coach. This included a salary increase, which paid exactly for my course fees. It also allowed me to do a job I love, while having the security of being employed. Imagine if I had stayed stuck in my comfort zone because of the fear of getting into debt or going into self-employment. Neither of which needed to happen.
Obviously, I did end up setting up my own business (if I hadn’t I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog!). Alongside my part time job working for a charity, I work a couple of evenings a week on this business, helping Mums find careers that work for them and their family. I love the balance of employment and self-employment, and that I get to be home with my little boy 4 out of 7 days. But I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t taken that initial leap of faith.
Who might miss out if you don’t take a risk?
I wasn’t a Mum when I made that decision, but I look forward to using that story to show my little boy that sometimes it’s worth taking a bit of a risk. I want him to see that trying new things is OK, even if you’re feeling a bit worried about how it might go. That it’s OK to challenge yourself to try something that scares you sometimes, because it might be really fun, and if it isn’t that’s fine, but at least you know!
If I hadn’t taken that risk, I would have missed some incredible opportunities. Since starting my coaching training and starting my business, I have grown in confidence, met some incredible people, learned so many new skills. Above all that, I’ve been able to help people with my new skills. So, if I’d stayed in my comfort zone, it’s not just me who would have missed out – my amazing clients would have too.
What risks would you take if you knew you couldn’t fail?
If you’re considering a career change, you might be experiencing some of the same fears I faced. Sometimes when you’re trying to make a decision about what’s next for you in your career it can feel really overwhelming. Maybe deep down you already know what’s next for you, but you can’t see past those fears you’re feeling.
I’ve created a mini course to help you make a decision and take action on the next steps in your career. I’d love to help you find a career that works for you and your family.
