You’re scared of leaving an abusive relationship because of the uncertainties of starting a new chapter of your life without the abusive partner you’re already used to. You’re scared of entering a new relationship because you don’t want to be hurt again. You can’t leave your job or trade because you’re not sure of finding anything better. What else it is you’re not doing because of the fear of failure?

A lot of us feel dissatisfied with our present lives, but we’re all scared of uncertainty – giving up all we have to pursue a dream that may or may not work out, loving someone with our whole hearts without guarantee, etc. But the truth is that it’s never as scary as it looks, and you are stronger than you thought.

Getting what you want is simple…. but not easy

We think we are fine even when we are clearly not. In every situation, no matter how bad it may be, we just say that we are fine, chiefly because it is the most convenient word to keep us within our comfort zone. So, even when we are battling with excess bodyweight, we say we are fine. When we are feeling like mere roommates with our spouses, we say we are fine. When we are sex-starved in our marital relationships we say we are fine, etc. The deal with saying we’re fine is actually genius, because if you’re fine, you don’t have to do anything about it. What it means is that you have convinced yourself that you are fine not having that thing you truly want and actually need, and that is why you are not pushing yourself. It is a convenient lie you have chosen to live.

All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the way you feel, and that could change the world, but what do you do with them? Nothing!

We all have an inner snooze button which we push to kill our ideas because we are either too scared or too lazy to leave our comfort zone. For example, when you wake up in the morning, probably at the sound of your alarm, the first decision you make is usually to snooze the alarm and go back to bed, at least for a few more minutes, which may end up being a few more hours. It is understandable because your bed is comfortable, it’s cosy and it’s warm, and if you are lucky, you’ve got somebody that you love (could be your spouse or kids) right next to you in bed. This analogy of our reluctance to get up from the bed in the morning typifies our attitude to our everyday life endeavours. In any area of your life that you want to change, there’s one fact that you need to know – you’re never going to feel like it. Scientists call it the activation energy. That is, the force required to get you to change from what you’re doing on autopilot to do something new and different. It is the inadequacy of this energy that makes it difficult for you to throw off your bedsheet immediately your alarm goes off in the morning, stand up and start your day, without snooze or delay. But if you manage to achieve this, you will come face to face with the physical force that is required to change your behaviour.

Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet? Of course not! The activation energy required to go outdoor for some tedious workout to shed some weight is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of your warm bed in the morning into a cold room to start-off your day.

You have to do the crap that you don’t want to do to make you be everything that you want to be. But you are so damn busy waiting to feel like it, and you are never going to.

As a kid your parents make you do the things you don’t feel like doing, because you won’t. Ever! You never felt like getting off your PlayStation to do your assignments, but your parents made you do it. However, the unwritten convention about adulthood is that you are meant to parent yourself. Literally, what that means is that you are expected to push yourself to do the things that you don’t feel like doing. This is because, one side of your brain works on autopilot and the other side works as an emergency brake. The autopilot is usually the default while the emergency brake manifests in the form of hesitation, skepticism, and procrastination. The nature of our minds is that anytime we do something different from our normal routine, the emergency brake is activated. And that is usually our reaction to everything new, strange or novel. That explains why people are usually resistant to change. Therefore, anything that is a break from your routine is going to require a force.

Your body is wired to send you signals when it’s in need. If you need food, you feel something… that’s the signal. If you need water, you get a signal. If you need sex, you also geta signal. Now, when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it’s a signal – not that your life is broken – but that one of your most basic needs is not being met – your need for exploration!

The Five Seconds Rule

The first few seconds when you get out of your bed sucks, but once you are up, it feels great. When your spouse invites you to a dance in the parlour and you feel the impulse to join him, and then you hesitate for a while, you are likely going to eventually decline. That experience when you had the impulse to do it and then you didn’t do the activation energy required to push yourself into it, your emergency brake got pulled. But, on the contrary, when you spring up to dance with him within the first five seconds of the impulse, you are likely going to takeover the dancefloor and never want to stop even when the song is no longer playing.

Your feelings are screwing you. So, care less about how you feel and care more about what you want. If you listen to how you feel when it comes to what you want, you will not get it, because you will never feel like it.

If you have those impulses that are pulling you and you don’t marry them with action within five seconds, you pull the emergency brakes and kill the idea. It is called the Five Seconds rule. Bear in mind that an action may be as simple as jotting something down as soon as you get the idea, dream, or inspiration. Your problem isn’t ideas. Your problem is that you don’t act on them. You kill them with hesitation and fear of leaving your comfort zone. Stop it!

Everything about your life and about your body grows. Your cells regenerate, likewise your hair, your nails, etc. Your soul needs exploration and growth too, and the only way you will get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable, i.e., forcing yourself to get outside of your head.

Growth only occurs in a state of discomfort. When discomfort hits, that means you have entered the complexity zone. And complexity is nothing more than changed order, but when your order is changed, outcomes are no longer predictable, and it is unpredictability that makes you uncomfortable. And while most times your visceral response to discomfort is not just “No” but “Hell, no”, you can actually learn how empowering it is to consciously acknowledge discomfort, and then when appropriate, choose complexity over order. Although seeking discomfort sounds odd, and not many people do it, but you have to learn to embrace it because it is the only environment where sustained or exponential growth can occur. Comfort, on the other hand, is actually stagnation.

Life’s a constant fight against your comfort zone – you push it, it pushes back. What’s the fear holding you back? What are you not doing or saying because it’s outside your comfort zone? Find that comfort zone today, bravely step out of it, and as you get comfortable again, push it even further. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.

In the words of Dr. Serene Jones: “The constant façade of order hides the wilderness that is craving to seep out and teach us that life wasn’t created to be what we think it is… we must experience the wilderness to be taught what cannot be otherwise known.”

Abu Bilaal Abdulrazaq bn Bello bn Oare

sahaabahonline@gmail.com