Another way to state the intent of this title would be to say, get outside your comfort zone. It’s easy to say, no I can’t do that, I already have too much on my plate. And maybe sometimes that is the right answer, but it is also the easy and comfortable answer. What if sometimes you said, yes, I’ll figure out a way to make that work?
How it might look to do too much
A couple weeks ago Shelby approached me with an opportunity to help out our local humane society by doing an event later this evening. On the surface that sounds fantastic, but remember we just did an event last night that required two solid months of planning to pull off. Normally, I’d have said no way can we do these two events back to back, but because of the people involved I said yes without a second thought.
I’m writing this before either event occurs but I’m confident both will be a success. We’ve ended up with at lest 15 door prizes from 10 donors for last night’s event. Tonight’s might not be quite as many but with 24 hours to go who knows. See, for last night’s event we found out about 1/2 the door prizes in the last 24 hours. If you help other people consistently they are going to come through and help you when it matters.
What’s the tradeoff?
This last couple weeks has been busy. Crunch time for two events, and an out of state trade show, along with all the normal demands of running a small business. So, what have I had to give up to make sure everything happens? A few hours of TV or relaxing in some way or another. I mean if putting in 60+ hours a week is not your thing I get that, and I’m certainly not suggesting that be your work week every week. But to push outside your comfort zone and realize your capable of so much more than you thought – isn’t that worth it every now and again?
Maybe it’s to help others as Shelby and I are doing with these two events or to help your family bridge a financial gap, the reason doesn’t matter quite as much as the act. You’ll learn that you are capable of more than you thought and that will in turn make you willing to take on larger and larger challenges. Here’s the tricky part – don’t forget to slow down and savor the success for a few days or a week. Relax, recharge your brain and analyze what you did right and not so right to get to the next level.
My challenge to you is to get outside your comfort zone once in the next 30 days and see where that takes you.