We encounter zones on a daily basis: a tow away zone, the infamous friend zone, zone defense, Discovery Zone (a birthday party paradise for Millennials back in the day), time zones, etc. Zones provide necessary boundaries for public safety, orderliness, and effectiveness. It should be no different in our personal lives. Mastering these two specific personal zones could be the difference between your success and defeat.
The two zones that will help you achieve mega personal growth are your strength zone and comfort zone. To lessen your failure rate, and accelerate your success, you must find the right combination of these two zones. I recently heard a talk by leadership legend, John C. Maxwell, where he spoke about this topic. John provided the following recipe necessary for personal growth.
The 2 Zones Of Personal Growth
A) Outside your strength and comfort zone = bad, impossible to win.
B) Outside your strength but inside comfort zone = bad with a possibility of being average.
C) Inside your strength and comfort zone = good but not great.
D) Inside your strength zone but outside your comfort zone = great and continual winning.
Identifying your strengths and then busting through your comfort level is the key to mega personal growth.
Steps to identify your strength zone:
1) Read Now, Discover Your Strengths.
2) Ask trusted confidants where they think your are strong.
3) Reflect on the tasks/projects where you excelled with ease and were affirmed for your talent.
Steps to busting through your comfort zone:
1) Identify your limiting self beliefs. What repetitive and long-standing processes or thoughts need changing? Ask yourself “What’s at stake if I do not push beyond?”
2) Lean into your strengths for increased confidence.
3) Welcome failure. Continual success is a result of continual failing and learning. Failure is not the enemy, not trying is.
John C. Maxwell concluded his talk with the following inspiring analogy about personal success: “You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life. There are no mistakes only lessons as a result of trial and error and experimentation. The failed experiments are as much the process as those that work. A lesson will be presented in various forms, failing to learn the lesson is to be stuck and unable to move forward. Learning lessons never ends. If you are alive, you still have lessons to learn. You have all the resources. The choice is yours.”
Grow on.
Question: What keeps you in your comfort or strength zone?
