Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

"Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." - Andy Grove

Early on in our careers we find ourselves wanting to achieve aggressive goals and make a difference. We work and play hard. We don't have too many other life obligations other than perhaps paying off our student loans or gaming with our friends.

Sooner or later, some of us do achieve a major career goal. Once we achieve the goal it is easy to take a break and relax. It was after all a fairly rigorous journey to get there.

We took calculated risks, we sacrificed our personal lives and health, we challenged the status quo and made things happen.

Perhaps we now have a family or other outside interests to pursue to fill in the time we used to spend on the job. Some of us even get to the point where we are happy with out careers and all they want to do is to hold on to what they got. We just want to survive until retirement. And to do this we also stop taking risks and even stop learning.  After all, why go through the pain of learning or doing new things? Or worse changing our behaviors or assumptions.

Regardless, all of us end up in "The Comfort Zone" sooner or later. It is human nature. Sometimes it is hard to see if we are in the comfort zone. And often times the impetus for change requires a significant emotional event (major failure, RIF, divorce, relocation, doctor prognosis, disruptive technology). It also takes effort to get out of this zone. And when we stop applying effort we either backslide (most likely) or find ourselves in a new comfort zone only higher. This same concept applies to teams and organizations.

Agile leaders don't wait for significant emotional events to occur (odds are they most likely have already experienced one). They also never stop making the effort to change. Often times via reflecting, learning, applying, improving, taking risks, or serving their teams.

Are you doing new things now that you were not doing 1 year ago?