Does comfort stifle motivation?

Getting out of your comfort zone on your travels not only opens you up to new experiences, but also teaches you a lot about yourself. It’s advocated by a wide variety of travelers—from Rick Steves to Nicholas Kristof. And when you’ve done it once, it can change the way you travel for the rest of your life.

What about at home? Certainly comfort is a good thing, in this time of economic crisis, right? A recent Lifehacker article points out that comfort may be the thing that’s holding you back from your dreams. Think about that job you hated. Your boss may have been a jerk, you were bored out of your mind, or you just grew tired of the path you were on. But it was hard to leave a sure thing, even when it was slowly sucking your motivation for change out of your being.

According to Ran Zilca (in a blog post for Psychology Today that is quoted in the Lifehacker article), we need to keep an eye on how much comfort may be keeping us back—regardless of where we are:

As soon as you choose to leave your comfort zone, you form a direct friction with life, go towards the pursuit of your dreams, and in short—really start living… Your comfort zone is your home base, a safe place not to stay in, but to return to, after each exhausting and exhilarating expedition through the wilderness of life.

Don’t wait for your travels to stretch the barriers of your shelter of comfort. Even a small change in your everyday life can start you on the path of doing what really matters to you.