As much as I want to call myself an outgoing person, I continuously end up being the quiet one in the room when the professor asks for elaboration, or the person who never goes out of their way to make plans with people they aren’t comfortable with yet. I am a firm believer that it’s better not to rock the boat. Even after I have slowly been able to take small leaps of faith in the past couple of months, I will still mindlessly catch myself stumbling back to my comfort zone where I feel no harm could ever come to me.
The truth is, doing this will cause more harm than the thing that I believed was so scary. Staying within comfortability will always be more harmful than going into the unknown and leaving unsuccessful. Why? Because life is horrible, tragic and disappointing. Until it’s not. Until it’s absolutely everything you hoped and dreamed of plus more. Until it’s exactly what you’ve been working for your entire life and you’re finally rewarded. Until a wonderful and surprising outcome that never would’ve happened if you would’ve played it safe.
But I’m scared
You should be. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t. Being scared is reinforcement that what you’re about to do is a big deal. However, your anxiety is tricking you into thinking that the consequences of doing it are far more severe than in actuality. For example, you may be thinking that taking on that internship may be way too much on your plate with class and balancing your social life. In your head you’re going through scenario after scenario, how you could end up failing out of all of your classes, or worse… you could miss a party.
But what if those things didn’t happen? What if the internship brought you a whirlwind of opportunity in the job field. What if you built connections with employers for the future that ended up landing you a high-paying job right out of college? What if you built close relationships with the other interns and met a future bridesmaid, or better, your future husband? Yes. so many things can go wrong… but so many things can go right. But you’d never know that unless you tried.
I don’t want to be rejected
Fear of rejection is the most common reason for remaining in the comfort zone for far too long. This can be rejection from romantic partners, employers, professors or even your parents. Everyone is afraid to be shot down. It not only bruises your ego, but it makes you become more insecure of your looks, ideas, or intelligence. One thing about rejection that not a lot of people realize is that it is 100%-absolutely-without-a-doubt necessary.
I know that being rejected is such a scary concept to grasp, especially if you’re like me and you want to be liked by absolutely everyone, but it helps to remember that everyone goes through it. You’re probably thinking to yourself that the one girl who went to high school with you does not fall into that category because you can’t think of a single thing that has went wrong in her life. But guess what? She too has been rejected before. Maybe it was from the kids she babysat who terrorized her, or the modeling job she never got a call back from because she “didn’t fit the image.” But trust me, rejection isn’t stingy with the people it affects.
Think about the people you look up to the most. Do they care about what people say behind their back? Or what opportunities fell through in the past? No, they work for the present and future because that is the only thing that they can control. If it is out of your hands then why worry yourself sick? Rejection is a temporary pain that you could choose to be afraid of, or you could face it head on knowing that it could very well be a possibility. You may end up with an entirely different outcome.