Avoid your comfort zone

Posted by Justin Goldsborough | 0 comments

Jul 17, 13

A wise man once said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And who am I to argue with a wise man? But any wise man I’ve ever met would be first to admit that his advice is not applicable in all situations. And then he would most likely defer to a wiser woman. At least, if he knew what was good for him.

So I’ll do that here, and defer to some even smarter advice a wise woman I know shared with me a few years back: Make sure you’re doing something different this time next year.

When I was an intern in college, there was a young women just out of college on our Communications team that almost all of my colleagues saw as high potential. Several times when I asked a question or worked on a project, this woman was pointed to as an example of how to do it the right way. She was a hard worker. She was smart. To a college junior (me) and a lot of her colleagues, she had a really bright future.

Fast forward eight years and I was hired by the same company at which I had interned. It was my second full-time job. And the first week I was there, I ran into the aforementioned high potential woman…doing pretty much the same job she had been doing when I interned at pretty much the same level. Sure, she had probably received salary increases. But she hadn’t moved up or diversified her work experience. She got caught doing the same thing she was doing last year. And eight years later, she was still doing the same thing.

How bright does her future sound now?

Falling into that set of circumstances is more common than you might think. Why does it happen? One word: Complacency. Let’s dissect it. It starts with a successful process. Something that works. When we have success with something, most people keep going back to the well. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?

The problem is that whole mindset is “broke.” When I worked at Applebee’s, our CEO said once that when your standing on top of the mountain — beating the competition and impressing Wall Street with your sales numbers — is when you have to work the hardest and be the most innovative. Because if you’re out in the lead, the only way your competition can catch up is if you fall victim to complacency.

It’s a fine line. We should celebrate successes and recognize what fostered them. Process and organization are important components to doing good work. But so is innovation. Thinking creatively. Having a willingness and an eagerness to ask how you can do something differently than it’s ever been done before.

A comfort zone sounds nice. It’s something all of us seek out and talk about when we discuss our career aspirations. But if you start to feel like your in your comfort zone at work, you might want to figure out a way to make yourself uncomfortable. Quickly.

Otherwise you could find yourself sitting there eight years later remembering the days when you were referred to as high potential.