Going Out of the Box!
- Gavin Sklar
- Sep 24, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 14, 2021
At one point or another, I believe that we all think about something we want to improve on. This could be our nutrition habits, our basketball skills, or our mindset just to name a few. But many times we say things like "oh I really need to work on that" or " I wanna be healthier," and although having these thoughts is great, many times these important potential improvements get put on the backburner. School or work starts to catch up with you, things pop up that you don't expect, and also you don't even know where to start!
To make the process of achieving your goals a bit smoother, I have a simple tip to get started, and it includes an analogy. This analogy is box. Each day, this box is being meticulously crafted day after day from the moment we are born with our experiences! With each one of these experiences, we subconsciously create our perception of the world around us. Over time, these experiences bring certain thoughts, and these thoughts bring certain emotions.... all the way leading to what we like and don't like - called beliefs. These beliefs continue to add up over time until creating this box, which may now be so close to us that it is touching. It has walls that are nice to look at, maybe some decorations and pictures on the walls. It feels comfortable. And this box is our comfort zone.
But this box, our comfort zone, is not set in stone. Our comfort zone may always be there, but we have the power to expand this box and maybe even make it into another shape - expanding what we think of as comfortable. With increased comfort comes more confidence, and with more confidence comes a greater chance of achieving your goals! But it starts with awareness, tying into the last blog post about awareness of our thoughts; it starts with awareness that this box can be shaped by us - with our experiences, thoughts, and actions; just like it did before, but now we are conscious of it. You can expand this box, you can shift it, and you can make it into whatever shape you want!
Now that you have this awareness, it's time to take action. A simple step is to do one thing today that is out of your box, or your self-limiting comfort zone. Some examples include: maybe turn the water cold in the last 30 sec of the shower, or say hello to a stranger, hold the door for someone, wake up 30 min earlier, or say no to dessert one day. And with these small yet powerful steps each and every day, your box will expand, the walls will start getting softer, and you will start to generate more and more confidence to achieve whatever goals you want. But it all starts with our mind, and then leading to small actionable steps.
Definitely an interesting read! Though, I might disagree in your saying that "these limits are not real." Everyone has their own limits, whether short-term or long-term. For me, trying to focus on doing one assignment that typically take someone maybe one-hour to finish, might take me two- or three-hours to do. In those cases, I just try to find a different way to go about it. For example, instead of trying to complete it in one-hour, I'd split the assignment in different times (something like "one step at a time"). It may take longer, but at least it'll come out with less BS.