The Comfort Zone: Is it a sign of weakness?

UNILAD and LADBible Founder Alex Partridge recently posted on LinkedIn about the issue he took with the following statement:

“You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations in order to be happy and successful. Comfort zones are for the weak.”

I don’t know much about Alex Partridge or his media company, and so this post is not an endorsement of any kind. I do, however, agree with his issue with the statement. The message is flawed and yet familiar in just about every facet of life. Telling people that they’re “weak” if they don’t push past certain boundaries, that happiness and success live only past those lines, is a toxic message we hear all day long.

Sadly, we don’t even see it. “For the weak? Who says these things anymore,” a fellow coach commented on the post. To that, I wanted to respond, “The list is long and distinguished,” but I refrained. Frankly, I believe that most of us have absorbed this philosophy so thoroughly, we don’t even know it’s at work. I can’t say I’m free of it myself. The constant inner drum of upward or outward mobility, of drive as the very definition of strength and success, of ambition as the only path to happiness…its beat is hard to silence.

And I know when I’ve heard it outside myself. I remember the odd, blank stares from leaders at work when I would express satisfaction in exactly the work I was doing or the role I was already in. I can conjure the expression on many faces when I’ve expressed the joy of being in a relationship exactly where it stands, or in embracing my solitude when it’s arrived. I’m certain that they’ve all doubted my strength. Or my sanity. Or both.

To be sure, I am a coach. It’s my job and my mission to partner with clients who want to generate change in their lives. And change is, for most of us, deeply uncomfortable.

But also, it’s my job and mission to meet my clients exactly where they are, to accept them as they are, and to help them accept themselves as well, as they define and embrace the strengths and values that already reside in them.

Success? Happiness? The only definition of these things that counts is your own. Some of us find them in pursuit of change, in achievement, and some of us find it in the realities we’ve already created. Why not embrace the possibility that success and happiness can be found in all of it?

This fine Monday and throughout the coming week, I wish you the crystal clear waters of knowing what your own success, your own happiness, look like. I wish you so much clarity in it, no other voice will be able to shift its shape or size or color.

Pro tip: Should someone deem your choices “weak,” “strong,” or anything else on that subjective sliding scale, pause, inhale, and imagine holding up a mirror. They’re only using words that they’ve used against themselves.