Move Out of Your Comfort Circle to Open New Opportunities

What is a Comfort circle? I have my own definition of what this means for me. To me, it means pushing myself to explore other social and professional relationships. This summer I opened my own business. This venture into entrepreneurship has given me a variety of different experiences. Over these months, I’ve had the opportunity to make more connections with other people than I have in many, many, years. In doing this, it has allowed me to grow in different ways already.

A Past Life in my Personal and Professional Circle

In my previous life/career, I had a wonderful yet very tight social and professional comfort circle. I still treasure these friendships and consider the women whom I remain close to from this world to be my family. However, the circle was small. I was a teacher in the same school for almost 15 years. The school became my second home and the staff became my surrogate family. I went through countless life events whilst working there, good bad and ugly! All things come to an end though.

It was time for me to seek out a new path and with that new direction, opened up a door to the outside world. This was a byproduct of choosing a new career, that I hadn’t expected. I didn’t consider that I would be personally fulfilled in such a personal and professional capacity.

Good Personal Talk

Over this past weekend, I was honored to be able to join my original comfort circle on a girls’ trip to the Keys. It was a blast and we had great conversations throughout the trip. One of those conversations was with a beautiful friend of mine, a fellow teacher. We had both spent the majority of our careers at the same school.

As life evolves, so do we…sometimes we have to hit a point in our personal and professional lives that force us to re-evaluate what we are doing. This was definitely the case for me! We talked about how sometimes when you stay within your comfort circle it becomes a safe cave that ultimately we hide within. It is reliable, predictable, and comfortable. It can also be a cyclical scenario that you realize you are stuck in.

Conquer Fear and Open Up New Opportunities

Our conversation led to the idea that opening up ourselves to new experiences professionally; joining networking groups and professional clubs as well, will steer us in new directions. We were excited!

It is uncomfortable to put yourself on a platform for others to see you, for what you have to offer personally and professionally. Also, I know for me, talking about my professional attributes, feels arrogant and self-important. I need to get over that.

The courage to say yes to new opportunities is the crux of the conversations we had over this weekend getaway. Say yes to new environments, people, relationships, career opportunities, and challenges.

Say YES to Everything

There is a new mantra in my head these days. I wake up and commit to being excellent every day. In addition, I will commit …to say yes to new challenges and see where it takes me. I will conquer fear and remember to put out positive thoughts, vibes, and actions because that will bring back the same to me in return. I will say yes to everything.