Be your friend

“Being your friend” is an idea that I’ve been trying to incorporate into my life over the past few years. When I first began to get out of my comfort zone again after being stuck in a rut it was pretty confronting and this was a skill that I needed to develop to help me with it.

Getting out of our comfort zone is hard. We’re taking on something that usually we haven’t done before. Very rarely are we going to be good at it straight away, although there are always exceptions to that rule. I don’t know about you but when I’m not god at something straight away the voice of my inner critic pops up inside my head.

“You’re shit at this, just like the last thing you tried”

“Why did you bother, just stick to what you know you’re good at”

“Why are you even trying to do that in the first place, it’s probably not going to be that good in the long term anyway”

When you start asking people, most of them have some version of this going on in their heads. When we’re taking on a challenge, or when life gets hard that little bastard voice pops back up. It can wear you down, especially if you can’t overcome the challenge quickly. That little critic inside your head constantly berates you until you give up and step back into your comfort zone. You end up with less confidence than you had when you started and consequently your comfort zone has shrunk a bit. This can turn into a negative spiral until you’re perpetually stuck in your comfort zone and you end up living an unhealthy, unfulfilling life.

Some people have become good at answering back to the inner critic, putting it in it’s place. This is a valuable skill to develop and one I’m working on myself but am very much a beginner at. So much so that my inner critic berates me for how bad I am at answering back to it.

Like most people before they get to this stage, I’ve first had to become aware of what my inner critic is saying to me. Then I have to stop and think about it rather than reacting. A valuable question to ask is, “Is this true?” If I don’t have an answer for it, that’s OK, but it probably means that I need to spend some time thinking about that concept.

It’s the time that I don’t have an answer that “Be your friend” comes into play. It’s a strategy that I use to stop that negative spiral. When your inner critic is berating you and you can’t answer back, then ask yourself the question “would I speak to my mate like this?” If the answer is no then you’re likely being way too harsh on yourself. I’ll take a couple of deep breaths and say to myself” I’m my friend”, usually in my head especially if there are people around, although it’s pretty cool to say it out load. It takes practice to be aware of these moments and then to become good at telling yourself that you’re your friend but it’s a strategy that has worked well for me.

If you would talk to your mates like that, then you might be a bit of a dick and you should probably look at that.

Life is hard, it’s important that we go easy on ourselves when we’re uncomfortable, which is different from not getting uncomfortable in the first place.

If you want to learn the strategies of getting out of your comfort zone without stressing yourself out then head over to getoutofmycomfortzone.com and sign up for our free online course.

Host: Chris Desmond

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Music: Jeremy Desmond Music