AVOIDING THE COMFORT ZONE....

I must confess to being a slob. Well perhaps slob is too harsh a word...but I do like my comfort.

Straight home from work, and the shoes come off, slippers on...old cardy goes on...jewellery comes off.

If I'm home for the day I spend the day in my old baggy tracky pants and t-shirt. Some days at work, I dream about coming home to my comfy clothes and my slippers...sad but true. And they are not exciting slippers :(


I can dress up, and do, when called for. But basically I'm just too lazy.

Unfortunately I'm also that way in my writing. Whatever's easy, what works for me. What I don't have to push for.

Looking back over the year (who on earth was the person that put up on Facebook how many weekends till Christmas? when I find you, you are in trouble!) I find time after time, that I opt for the easy option.

I don't push myself. Don't step out of that soft and fluffy comfort zone.

We all have a comfort zone....sometimes it's that straight path from A to B. Other times we like to detour, begin at A...travel over to D.....then down to F....backtrack to C....zoom down to L for a while...and we always tell ourselves it's all about the journey. But we never ever make it to B. Never.


Is it too late to step out of the comfort zone?

Never. I wrote a blog a while ago about my walking at the lake, how I always went in one direction...then my deliberate and forced walk in the other direction.

Did the world end because I walked anti-clockwise instead of clockwise? Of course not, but I was in the habit of walking a certain way...and to stop and think and make myself take those first steps in the other direction did feel strange. Almost wrong. But it was merely a walk. Same amount of steps, just in a different direction.




It is often confronting and strange to take those steps away from all you know. So easy to begin with a new plan, a new way of working...only to slip back into the old familiar and easy ways.

Is it time for a new form of writing....new structure....new way of planning...of setting deadlines.

Time to try a new genre? New voice? New process?

It won't be easy...and it won't always work.

It is a cliche but the truth is you will never know unless you have a go.


It may be a small step out of the comfort zone...or a huge leap....even nudging your toe over the line.

My small step? I have yet to decide, but I think knowing how much I do LOVE my comfort and want things easy, is a first step.

Vicki 

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