*Written with Veridion Smart

There is something strangely deceptive about comfort. It feels safe. Familiar. Predictable. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. After a difficult season, a little peace can feel like a gift. We all need places where we can breathe, regroup, and simply be ourselves.

But there is another side to comfort that we don’t always recognize. Sometimes our comfort zone becomes a prison. Not a prison with bars or locked doors, but one lined with velvet. A place so familiar and comfortable that we don’t realize we’re no longer moving forward.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

I’ve spent much of my life writing. When you’re a writer, you can spend an awful lot of time living inside your own head. Characters, memories, ideas, questions, possibilities, all of them are much easier to deal with when you can put them onto a page and close the door behind you. But eventually, the stories have to leave that room.

And that’s where things get uncomfortable.

My mother was an extraordinarily talented woman. She had gifts in music and comedic writing, among other things, but she was also a perfectionist – the kind who was rarely satisfied with anything she did. Looking back, that always saddened me because I knew how talented she was. I often wondered what she might have accomplished if she had allowed herself the freedom to simply try something without demanding perfection from herself first.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that some of that perfectionism found its way into me. I didn’t necessarily recognize it as perfectionism at the time. Sometimes it looked like I was just being careful. Sometimes it looked like I was just making a serious decision. Sometimes it looked like I simply knew what I did and didn’t want to do.

But sometimes it was fear wearing a much nicer outfit. It was fear of getting it wrong, fear of being judged, fear of looking foolish, fear of putting something out into the world and discovering that it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

And if you wait until you’re certain you can’t fail, you may spend your entire life waiting.

So, I’m learning to step outside. Recently, I’ve been doing something that doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I’ve been putting myself in front of a camera.

That may not sound particularly frightening to some people, but believe me, it’s not where I’m most comfortable. I’m much happier behind a keyboard, creating stories, than I am sitting in front of a camera wondering what everyone is thinking about me.

And yet, here I am. I recorded a video. 

And then I watched it.

Well...I tried to watch it. 

But something occurred to me while I was doing it. Maybe the goal isn’t to become completely comfortable. Maybe the goal is to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Because if I wait until I feel completely confident, completely prepared, completely polished and completely certain that I won’t embarrass myself, I may never leave my comfortable little corner again. And there are too many things I still want to do for that to be acceptable.

I don’t think that real growth ever feels comfortable. The truth is, we sometimes imagine personal growth as something inspiring and beautiful. We picture the moment when everything suddenly makes sense, our confidence appears, and we walk boldly into our future without looking back. 

But I’m beginning to think it’s usually much messier than that.

Sometimes growth looks like recording a video while wishing you could disappear. Sometimes it looks like trying something new and wondering whether you’ve made a terrible mistake. Sometimes it means allowing someone else to see a part of you that you’ve spent years keeping private. 

Sometimes it simply means saying: I’m going to try.

And that’s enough.

The first video doesn’t have to be perfect. I get that now. The first attempt doesn’t have to be brilliant. The first step doesn’t have to look impressive.

It just has to be a step.

What might be waiting outside your comfort zone? Maybe it’s a book you’ve always wanted to write. Maybe it’s a conversation you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s a new career, a new relationship, a new adventure, or simply the courage to let people see more of who you really are. Maybe you’ve spent years telling yourself that you’re too old, too inexperienced, too busy, too afraid, or simply not that kind of person.

I understand. I’ve used all those excuses.

But I’ve also learned that our lives can become surprisingly small when we allow those justifications to make all of our decisions for us.

Comfort has its place. But it shouldn’t have the final say.

So, I’m stepping outside my own comfort zone. Not because I’m fearless. I’m not. Not because I’ve suddenly conquered perfectionism. I haven’t. I’m doing it only because I still have stories I want to tell, people I want to reach, and new journeys I want to experience. And I don’t want fear or perfectionism disguised as caution to decide how much of my life I get to live.

Maybe that’s what stepping outside a comfort zone really means: Not becoming a different person, but just giving the person you’ve always been a little more room to grow. And if you’re standing at the edge of your own comfortable little world right now, wondering whether you should take that first step...

Maybe we can take it together.

After all, comfort zones may be velvet prisons, but the door is usually unlocked.