Wikipedia says about the Comfort Zone this…

One’s comfort zone refers to the set of environments and behaviours with which one is comfortable, without creating a sense of risk. A person’s personality can be described by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish. A comfort zone is a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries. Such boundaries create an unfounded sense of security. Like inertia, a person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his or her life, will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. To step outside a person’s comfort zone, they must experiment with new and different behaviours, and then experience the new and different responses that then occur within their environment.

You have to leave

the city of your comfort

and go into the wilderness

of your intuition.

What you’ll discover

will be wonderful.

What you’ll discover

will be yourself.

ALAN ALDA

According to John-Roger and Peter McWilliams the comfort zone is our personal area of thoughts and actions within which we feel comfortable; it’s all the things we’ve done (or thought) often enough to feel comfortable doing (or thinking).  Anything we haven’t done (or thought) often enough to feel comfortable doing lies outside the parameter of the comfort zone.  When we do (or think) these things (basically, anything new) we feel uncomfortable.

For example, most people reading this blog find little difficulty reading English-it’s within your comfort zone.  However, how comfortable are you reading code?

Dpohsbuvmbujpot!  Zpv’wf kvtu dsbdlfe uif dpef!

Can you crack the code?  What does the sentence say?

How do you feel?  Uncomfortable?  Overwhelmed?  Have you given up yet?  Did you give up before you started?  What if there was a million dollars riding on it?  And you had to do it on TV?  And someone you love’s life is depending on it?  Plus, there is a time limit?

How do you feel?  If you played along with my questions, you probably felt some tinges of fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and/or anger – the feeling blanketed in what is generally called uncomfortable.

After feeling uncomfortable long enough we tend to feel discouraged; we give up.  Some people give up before they even begin.  They say things like “I’m not good at puzzles.”  or “I’m no good at these things.”  Or “This is stupid.”

Other people, who love puzzles, jumped right in.  They weren’t uncomfortable; they were challenged!  Perhaps the “doers” felt the same emotion the uncomfortable felt… that tingling we feel when rising to a challenge… and labeled it “excitement instead of “fear.”  Maybe they used that energy to help solve the puzzle.

How often have you heard someone say, “I don’t want to do that; I feel uncomfortable.”?  It is a given, for most people, and accepted fact that uncomfortableness is a sufficient reason for NOT doing something.

The primary sensations we enounter when approaching the “walls” of the comfort zone are fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger.  When feeling any one or, especially, a combination of them we say we’re uncomfortable.  After messing with our comfort zone for awhile, we tend to feel discouraged; and discouragement is the primary barrier to living our dreams.

Why would anyone want to be comfortable?  And I don’t mean in the sense of a comfortable home, car, boat etc…  Where there is comfort there is no growth… there is stagnation.  And where there is no growth there can only be decay. 

At any given moment in time you are either growing or decaying.  I know some of you won’t like that last statement.  The truth sometimes stings. Get uncomfortable with that.

If you are not growing in your industry you are decaying as new technologies make your current skills useless.  If you are not growing in your personal life you will continue to live out the skills you learned before your eighteenth birthday.  Ninth grade skills work perfectly… in ninth grade.

Many parents want good kids.  Studies show that the average parent spends less than 17 minutes per WEEK in a meaningful conversation with their children about something important to the child.  That’s less than 2 1/2 minutes a day!  They want good kids but are unwilling to get uncomfortable and talk to them.

When I married my wife, Toni, our vows didn’t say “for comfortable or worse.”  They said “better!”  And better is a constant change, consideration, behavior and/or attitude.

To be uncomfortable is to risk; to stretch; to grow.

The only thing I am willing to get comfortable about is being uncomfortable.

Get Uncomfortable!

Ronald Cavage is the co-owner, with his beautiful wife Antoinette, of Independant Group, LLC.  A company dedicated to the growth of Leaders and People with Dreams.

Technorati Tags: attitude, behavior, Boldness, challenge, change, comfort zone, dreams, Excellence, fear, leaders, risk

Well, during the first few years of the “trial” phase there was such a high level of failure that the state had to make a decision if it was to enforce the testing for graduation.

They had the choice to either hold the teachers responsible for teaching this material in a way that the students learned and retained the information or… 

You guessed it… make the test easier!

When did we, as a nation, give up expecting Excellence as the standard? 

Why are we so afraid to hold the parents, teachers and students accountable?  Is is so much to ask a mother or father to sit with their child once and a while to support them in the educational process?

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love teachers!  And like many professions there are a lot of worthy, loving and giving educators.  However, let’s not kid ourselves either.  There are plenty that only show up because they get paid to be there.

I recall my high school history class.  My teacher never taught one thing.  I’m not kidding.  Our grade was determined on a particular number of accumulated points.  Each quarter he would pass out a packet of papers listing what we could write about to earn anywhere from 5 to 20 points.  Depending on how many papers we turned in dictated whether we passed or not.  Not once did he ever stand up and instruct.

How is this acceptable? 

Mediocraty has become the norm because it is easiest to accomplish.  No one will judge you for living BIG.  In fact, many won’t even notice you.  But what kind of existence it that?  Why would anyone want to be remembered for not being remembered?

Make this you year or significance.  Go after your dreams with a vengence.  Leave those behind that don’t want to run fast with you.  You’ll catch up to someone else further up.

Make this your best year ever.

Often times the difference between Excellence and failure is simply to get out of your mind.

In otherwards, sometimes you have to stop thinking and follow your intuition.  Many people shrug off their “gut” feeling only to pay for the ignored in time.

Following your gut or more accurately you heart requires faith and a good set of nerves.  People’s fear of failure overrules what they really “know” inside as the right thing to do. 

Think back at a time when you “knew” what to do and ignored the feeling only to say to yourself “I knew that was going to happen,” or “I knew I should have done that.” 

Golfers are very familiar with this feeling.  Right after slicing a drive out of bounds, I’ve heard several people turn and say “I knew I was going to do that.”  And I wonder to myself (and sometimes out loud,) “then why didn’t you step back and do something different?”

Why indeed! 

Back when I use to trade options there were many times when my intuition was telling me to sell my current positions and I ignored it because my mind was looking at charts and saying the timing wasn’t right.  Consequently, the charts were irrelevant and my position would vanish overnight.

Had I gotten out of my head and into my feelings I would have experienced a much better result.

So why do we stay in our head when every other sensation is screaming to do something different?

Simple… EGO.

Our ego runs our minds.  It has us do things based on how we may or may not look to other people.  Our fear of looking bad or doing something we may be judged for is stronger than our willingness to risk trusting our feelings.

And there are prices being paid.  You’re paying your happiness, relationships, liberty, health and many other prices. 

Sadly enough we are not the only ones paying prices for staying in our heads.  Other people are paying prices too.  For example, when we lose money, our family suffers from our stress, loss of liberty, bad moods etc…

All that because we listened to our head instead of our heart.

Today, I challenge you to remain aware of when your intuition is speaking and follow it.  You may not see a different result or you might. The awareness is the first step to overcoming your EGO and Accepting Excellence.

Technorati Tags: Excellence, failure, fear, intuition

Excellence In Leadership provides developmental solutions for Managers and Directors. The opportunity to lead an office is generally extended to individuals that have had little or no executive experience with complex teams. Building a successful office requires a myriad of tactical and psychological techniques. It is a daunting task to recruit, retain, develop and be financially responsible for building a successful operation – few are prepared to do it well. As a result, top leaders often accept a low standard of performance. Excellence In Leadership is the best and most comprehensive program in the United States for leaders.

Excellence In Leadership Sessions include:

* Self Awareness
* Assessment of Desire
* Crusade Development
* Capability Assessment
* Crusade Communication
* Individual Commitment Assessment
* Strategic Plan Creation
* Direct Report Endorsement
* Plan Communication
* Implementation
For more information, please visit http://www.dialexis.com/Leadership.html

Duration : 0:4:22

Technorati Tags: business, communication, development, dialexis, leaders, leadership, management, managers, sales, strategy, success, successful, techniques, training

Duration : 0:6:38

Technorati Tags: Excellence, for, strive

For the "We" there is only what is known, familiar, and conventional — easily converted into a image for consumption by the masses. This visible image of "what is" has not been significantly altered since the Enlightenment philosophers were able to "undo" the aristocratic monopoly on virtue. That the image of virtue persisted is no surprise. Not surprising, either, is how easily the image was appropriated by the solid, always striving, profit oriented, merchant classes.

For the "I" that can strive past the "We"… a vast and barely conceivable treasure.

The thought of anything other than greatness and excellence is just a mere mirage of what is the real truth about who you are. Everything you are is Excellence, magnificence, brilliance, genius, unconditional love and unlimited divine intelligence. The DNA of your being is one of perfection. There is nothing that needs to be fixed about you. Rather all YOU need to do is to awaken to these truths about who you are. When you do every day beginning with today will be one of glorious and spectacular accomplishments. Everything will be in alignment with the vision you have for yourself. Your purpose will be passionately expressed because you are willing to RECEIVE, ACCEPT AND EXPRESS the calling of your life through all the actions you take. You will make all the right choices and the world before you will open up into the divine garden of creativity and infinite imagination that is always present. YOU are ready to s tep into it and capture the perfect essence of who you are.

“What you are thinking right now will guide you towards your dream. Is it a positive expression of who you are? Make sure you make it one.”

I AM willing to RECEIVE, ACCEPT AND EXPRESS my true calling
My LIFE is a perfect expression of divine intelligence
I see hear and feel the presence of my excellence and magnificence
I AM in the flow of life and LIFE flows through ME
I know all things are possible for I AM Infinite possibility
I step into the brilliance of all my creativity powerfully

It’s your day…MAKE IT A GREAT ONE!

Music and reading property and right of Paul Hoffman of SuccessSongs
Love and Light Cheryl Nichols

Duration : 0:6:4

Technorati Tags: education, hope, inspiration, love

(The greater danger is not that your hopes are too high and you fail to reach them; but that they are too low and you do).
-Michelangelo

I don’t think it does. So many children are not held accountable for their behavior. As a society we are so worried about hurting a child’s self esteem that we don’t let them fail. If we went back to children winning and losing at games and having hurt feelings then they would be motivated to do better. That is what encourages Excellence.