Have you ever thought about what your life would be like if you could turn back time by 10 years, or even 10 months and force yourself to do something you once didn't have the heart to do? How would your life look today?

Consider this formula: Who you are and how well you do today is the sum result of your desire, past experiences and past choices. If you want to feel more satisfied in your private domain or if you want to be more successful in your business, the only way of doing this is increasing your desire (clear vision), increase your experiences (education to lower resistance) and thinking through your choices before you take action (identify your dissatisfaction and take the first step). In other words getting out of your comfort zone.

The majority of people tend to get into a comfortable rut.  They know what they will be doing each day, each week, and each year.  Within certain guidelines, their lives are predicable and stable. 

Predictable and stable, however, are not factors that lead to success.  Risk taking and instability are the keys to going from mediocre to stellar.  Most people have a difficult time moving out of a comfortable situation and into one of insecurity and unknown turns. But this is exactly what you have to do to become successful - get out of your own way.

The best way to do this is to take small steps towards a larger goal.  Realize that there are four major areas that make up our comfort zones: Geographical, personal, activity-related, and mental.  That is:

·    Geographical: Where we live, work, and play

·    Personal: Our friends, family, and co-workers

·    Activity-Related: Our entertainment and hobbies

·    Mental: What and how we think

If you think about something you are familiar with, like job tasks you do on a daily basis, you are within your mental comfort zone, but if you think like you have never done before, you are outside of your mental comfort zone.

Where do you prefer to be,within your comfort zone, or outside of it? Ninety-five percent of people feel more comfortable within their comfort zone, and you probably fall into that category; this is absolutely fine!

But why do most people feel better within their comfort zone? The explanation is simple, yet frightening: Humans are born with an innate, primary instinct that continues to control our lives, yet it is no longer necessary to our survival.

A very long time ago, humans were only able to survive as gregarious animals, and therefore, Mother Nature gave us the appropriate herd instinct: Never leave your comfort zone, because that's your safe place. Danger impends when you leave your comfort zone.

This is why most people spend their entire lives within their comfort zones, desiring more of the same and occasionally wishing for better.  Because you already know everything within your comfort zone, unfortunately development is only possible if you take the risk step outside of it.

As humans we are fundamentally motivated by two factors: Pain or Pleasure, and we are generally twice as motivated to move away from pain as we are to move toward pleasure. In fact we will take massive action to avoid pain... Tightening purse strings for example by giving up some pleasures to save money in tough economic times, or in the work place falling into the age old trap of spending your most valuable asset, which is 'Time' believing that you are saving money by doing more yourself rather than outsourcing as you did in the past or hiring a new staff member to replace someone who has left.  

So, we take action and it moves us away from Pain. Why then do most of us not keep up that momentum to move us toward our desires (pleasures) of having an abundant lifestyle made possible through a great business that pays us dividends to invest in other forms of income stream to create compounding wealth?.... Because to do so we need to get out of our comfort zone.

The trick to expanding one's comfort zone is to not to make big changes. Create a goal to take one small step in the direction of your desires, get used to that and then move on to the others.  Changing any one area can be stressful. Doing too much, too soon will send you scurrying back to your comfortable rut.

Once you have taken a small step outside a certain area of your comfort zone, it's important you never go back into your old one. Stay consistent, no matter how unnatural you feel; you have to follow this rule until you know and feel comfortable with everything.

Once you've achieved this you will be on another level and that then becomes your new comfort zone, which then needs challenging again for your continued development. In other words, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.....