Annie Ridout on How To Stretch Your Comfort Zone

A guest post including an exercise from Annie's book, 'Raise Your SQ', out in paperback today!

HUGE thanks to Annie Ridout for this guest post which is available for all to read.

In July, Annie will also be speaking to the TooMuch Instagram members about how she uses online platforms to successfully promote her work (including her three books, Raise Your SQ: How The Power Of Spiritual Intelligence Can Change Your Life In Seven Days, Shy: how being quiet can lead to success, and The Freelance Mum: A Flexible Career Guide for better work-life balance). She will also be sharing her best advice for being visible online when it’s way out of your comfort zone, before ending with a Q&A session where members can pick Annie’s brain.

To find out more about TooMuch Instagram (a membership hosted here on Substack) click here, or to subscribe at the EARLY BIRD price (a 50% discount on full price) please consider upgrading your subscription by clicking the button below… Over to Annie!

Annie Ridout: author, journalist, poet, coach and entrepreneur

When I was at university, a friend asked me a question. He said: “Would you prefer a stable life, or an exciting life?”

At the time, I was into partying and travelling, I had different boyfriends and made new friends all over the place. So I said: “Exciting, obviously.” I felt that life was for living, not for settling down, or settling for anything other than exciting.

After university, I returned to London and continued living my exciting life: going out a lot, meeting people, taking different courses, doing creative projects. But then I met my husband and I saw that I could enjoy my life with him and that it would be both stable and exciting.

Stable because I knew I could trust him: he was kind and respected me. Exciting because I don’t believe a marriage or long-term relationship needs to get in the way of you having fun. Both together and on your own.

As I went on to have three children, develop a career, then launch a business, I thought more about the exciting-versus-stable question.

Really, it’s about living inside or outside your comfort zone.

When you’re living fully within your comfort zone, things feel stable. Safe. You might not challenge yourself so much, but neither do you have to deal with the consequences of taking a risk.

Sometimes a risk pays off and leads to something amazing, but at other times, it can go disastrously wrong and leave you feeling as if you have failed. Perhaps wishing you hadn’t done it at all.

Like all things in life, a balance is probably what we ought to strive for.

My comfort zone

Comfort really matters to me. It’s one of my top three values (along with ‘freedom’ and ‘hope’). So operating from within my comfort zone feels good.

For that reason, I’m very big on my daily routine and I rarely veer from it.

I get up at a similar time each day, do my intention-setting, drink three instant coffees, get my children their breakfast and then take them to school.

Once they’re dropped off, I go for a two-mile run, return home for a stretch and shower then do my pre-work ‘SQ’(spiritual intelligence) rituals:

Lighting a candle or scent diffuser.

Three pages of journalling.

Pulling a card from my tarot deck.

And then work begins, during school hours.

I pick my kids up at 3pm and I am on duty for the rest of the evening. I don’t often go out on weekday evenings, because it makes me too tired.

Now, to stretch my daily existence outside of my comfort zone might mean going to bed really late and waking up later, but then having to rush in the morning.

It might mean going for a swim rather than a run, letting my husband drop the kids at school, working somewhere outside the home.

But I’ve tried all these things and none of them feel as good as my normal habits.

So I stick to my comfort zone, which is my daily routine.

However, when it comes to work, I feel very differently.

Yes, I have my allotted working hours, which is necessary as I have other responsibilities, such as motherhood. But in terms of the work I will do, I’m open to new experiences.

Being a journalist means I have to pitch to editors in order to get a story published. This is stretching my comfort zone, because I have to convince another person that a particular article is a brilliant idea and that their readers will want to see it.

Often, a pitch will be ignored or rejected, so I have to pitch again.

Sometimes, I’ll re-pitch the same idea three times before it leads to a commission and publication.

For a long time, I found it very uncomfortable. However, I just had to do it, as there was no other way.

It’s a similar process for pitching a book idea to a publisher. You have to believe in yourself enough to keep pushing, even when it feels uncomfortable.

When each of my books were published - The Freelance Mum, Shy, Raise your SQ - I had to do public speaking as part of the publicity drive.

Well, I didn’t actually have to, but I was asked to and I felt a combination of obligation to my publisher and obligation to myself.

I felt I owed it to myself to take these opportunities, so that I would grow as a person.

I still find public speaking hard, but the more I do it, the more exciting I’ve started to find it.

I think public speaking will always be outside of my comfort zone, I will always feel nervous and, for that reason, I do loads of preparation.

But this serves me well, as it means I have well-thought-out answers to any questions I may be asked.

There’s this idea that we should step out of our comfort zone once a day. After all, stretching - or stepping outside of - our comfort zone leads to growth.

But, when we’re busy - maybe with young kids or juggling different jobs - it can feel like it’s just another thing to add to the to-do list.

So, I advocate for regularly testing or stretching your comfort zone, trying things that feel like a bigger challenge, but without putting yourself under unnecessary pressure.

Now, over to you and your comfort zone:

Name three things you do when you are operating within your comfort zone.

Now, name three things that would take you a little way outside of your comfort zone.

Next, can you name three things that would seriously challenge your comfort zone?

Things that feel kind of wild and perhaps you’ve never even considered doing before.

How do you feel about those three things you do that keep you in your comfort zone?

Do you feel like you want to continue doing things that way?

How about those three things that push you a little outside of your comfort zone?

How often do you do them?

Would you like to do these things more?

If yes, what could you do to incorporate them more regularly in your life?

Would you like to make a commitment to yourself, for when you might do them?

And what about the final three, the wild ideas that perhaps feel quite out of reach, or unaligned with your current reality? Would you like to do them?

How would it feel if you went ahead with one of them? Would you like to commit to trying it?

When are you going to do it?

How does it feel, to be thinking through your comfort zone in this way?

This exercise is an extract from Raise your SQ: How the power of spiritual

intelligence can change your life in seven days - out this month in paperback. It’s

full of coaching exercises and ideas for using spiritual tools and rituals to enhance

both your home and work-life. You can order your copy here.