Comfort Zones

 Although I’m musing now about doing a video focus group for the first time, it actually put me in the mind of why it’s important to wander outside of your comfort zones. When I was younger, life became increasingly about finding comfort zones. I remember that curiosity didn’t always lead to positive growth and adventure and over time, I began to place more value on security and familiarity, not so much to stick my head in the sand and avoid discomfort, but because trouble and trauma was an obvious downside to being reckless with impulses. As an adult, I’m not risk adverse but I often consider a boring day to be a good one, at least until I realize my brain is becoming slow and lazy where it isn’t challenged at all.

So in comes the video focus group. An email came asking if I would like to participate for a rather nice compensation and I usually say hell no to videos because seeing what a camera does to me often horrifies me into wondering if I really talk and look like that. Of course I know I don’t because I’m super anxious and having a stage fright sort of meltdown but I constantly wonder what experiences I might be missing by shutting down opportunities based on my inherent fears of seeing myself in video.

So this time I said yes, sign me up. I didn’t ask what it was for, didn’t ask what would be required, didn’t know if they would disclose it if I did ask, just assumed from the screening questions that it was about electronics. It’s for a hypothetical new product by a well known tech company (I didn’t have to sign an NDA but I’m also not going into the details either) and ugggggh, the moderator kept asking me to start a new question.

So it was pretty much banging me in the head of an area I’m no good with. I’m not that great forming original ideas. My ADHD was causing me to just lose my train of thought or ramble on without remembering my point. I should have been a mess by the end of it but the moderator did one thing right. She remembered there are customers just like me that they need too. People that don’t have all the right answers, who aren’t eloquent, who lose focus. I could have built off of any of the other panelists’ ideas and done much better, but by the end of it, I began to understand why she put me outside of my comfort zone. Maybe it was intentional. I’m clearly a writer. I’m great at it and it’s known, easy to find in a search. I’m great at crafting thought at my own pace and self-editing slowly. But I’m a bit unhinged without something to build off of. So by the time we reached the end, I was plenty ready to be done but also not completely deflated and humiliated. I saw the reasoning in why she liked to catch me off guard. 

Comfort zones don’t help companies grow either. And while I wished I was more eloquent and had more profound contributions, I was actually surprised hearing others agree and expand on what I said. I always place myself where I’m strongest and it was really interesting to experience it the other way around.