Your Comfort Zone is Not Same as Your Safety Zone
If you’re a deer living in a jungle, it’s safest to be with the herd. If you think you’re independent-minded and creative and stray from the herd, a lion might gobble you up. The jungle does not reward being different, or original, or innovative. Do what others are doing. That’s the safety zone.
A deer that strays from the herd feels discomfort. The discomfort keep the deer alive. Evolution has programmed it to feel that way, to feel comfortable about safe situations, and uncomfortable about unsafe situations. The deer isn’t able to logically explain why it doesn’t want to stray from the herd. It’s hardwired.
I was talking to a classmate from IIT who’s been working in the same generic Fortune 500 company for a decade, earning a low salary, not much higher than what freshers can earn today. I offered to help him get a job for double the salary. Or if he’s not interested in more money, he could work fewer hours for the same money and spend more time with his family. Or advise a startup to increase his optionality for the future. Or pick up technical skills to keep himself relevant a decade from now. There are so many options he could have explored depending on his goals. But he was afraid to pursue any of them. Or even look at any of them before deciding not to take them up. He wanted to be in his comfort zone of the Fortune 500 company he understood well and knew how to succeed in.
In the modern world, where you don’t worry about a hungry lion when you go out for a walk, the comfort zone and safety zone have diverged, as Seth Godin points out in this infographic:
Being in the comfort zone is unsafe for you, but most people in the modern world stay in it. Because we’re all programmed that way by evolution. It’s not a logical decision we make after analysing the pros and cons. Our deepest, instinctive behaviors come from our millions of years of evolution in the jungle.
But we humans have the cognitive gift that allows us to consider Seth’s point of view and choose to overcome our instinct.
I was narrating the incident of the IIT friend to another friend, who pointed out that we both, having tried out many options, are unfazed by quitting a job.
When I left my job at Google, I worked as an independent app developer, hoping to sell an app to make a living. I then started my startups NoctaCam and Futurecam. I then ran a small consulting company. I then worked as a CTO of a startup. I now work as a consulting CTO.
In your career, you should try out whatever catches your fancy. This will expand your comfort zone. Taking up a job as a CTO was comfortable for me because I had to do only part of what I did as a sole founder, with income and with less skin in the game. Most people who are used to getting a salary would be uncomfortable at the prospect of consulting, since the income is uneven from month to month. But having earned no income for years in my startup, I was very comfortable with consulting.
So, if you feel like doing something, do it. It will broaden your comfort zone, setting a higher baseline for the rest of your career. This is similar to how sportspeople train longer and harder than they need to perform in an actual game, to expand their limits.