The Four Comfortable Uncomfortable Mindsets
The topic of this blog post is about personal growth, which is dear and near to my heart. It is — IMO — one of the biggest, but also one of the most rewarding challenges in your career. Or as a person, for that matter.
I have developed what I call The Four Comfortable Uncomfortable Mindsets and believe that this is a valuable tool/framework for personal growth. Whether this is growth in your career and/or in your (personal) life. If you prefer to watch the video instead of reading this blog post, by all means, here it is.
‘Hum OK…. But what do you mean exactly?’, you might ask. Great question! Please carry on reading and it will all be clear (I hope). It will only take 6minutes of your time and may be an eye opener…
First, let me show you my (hand-drawn) picture of the four mindsets (as that says more than a 1,000 words). These four mindsets essentially form a quadrant:
Let me now explain what each mindset means.
When you are in the Comfortable/Comfortable mindset (upper left part of the quadrant), you are on a Plateau. This means that you are OK with what you are doing. You do it well and it is not really much of an effort, to be honest. For some people, this is exactly where they want to be in their career and/or in their life.
But over time, you may also realize that this is not really where you want to be. There could be different reasons for this: you get (intellectually) bored, you become complacent, the fun-factor is not as fun anymore, and so on. In other words, you start feel uncomfortable with being comfortable. As such, your mindset changes to the lower left part of the quadrant Uncomfortable Comfortable. As you can see in the picture, this part has two possibilities: (i) Danger Zone and (ii) Opportunity.
You are in the Danger Zone when (i) you are uncomfortable with your current situation and acknowledge this, but (ii) you don’t want to do something about it or you simply don’t know how. You are essentially stuck, as nothing changes. Hence the ‘feedback loop’ arrow between Danger Zone and Plateau.
Based on my own experience, I see a lot of people in this spot. I call it the Danger Zone for a reason. Because — depending on what you are uncomfortable with — staying in the Danger Zone for a longer time may have a profound impact on how you feel mentally, physically, how you treat your co-workers, how you feel about your job, and — very important — how tolerable you are as a person to be around with. Whether this is with your co-workers, family or friends. In other words: not a place where you typically want to be for a long time.
The other option is to see this as an Opportunity. An opportunity for change in order outgrow the plateau. The big difference between being in the Danger Zone and Opportunity is action. In other words: willing to actually do something about it, rather than just talking and thinking about ‘What if?’. Your mindset changes to ‘I want to do something about this!’.
For example, say you want to improve your listening skills, as you have the tendency to interrupt and only listen to respond rather than really listening of what is being said without interruption. Being on a Plateau means ‘You continue to “listen” as you do and are OK with this regardless what others think.’ You are in the Danger Zone when you don’t like this, but don’t want to do something about it because, for instance, you don’t know how. You just leave it as is, but you feel uncomfortable about it at the same time. You see it as an opportunity when you are willing to take action, even if you don’t know how. But you are willing to put yourself out there and at least try to improve your listening skills.
The next mindset change is to Take a Leap of Faith, which takes you to the lower right part of the quadrant Uncomfortable Uncomfortable. You are initially uncomfortable all over the place. You are uncomfortable with taking it on, as it is new, it may make you nervous, you may make a fool out of yourself, you may not succeed, and so on. It is key here to understand that you are uncomfortable being uncomfortable and that you are OK with this. As over time, you start to see/realize that things are improving and you are getting the handle of it. In other words: your comfort level increases.
When this happens, your mindset changes again. It changes to being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Which moves you to the upper right part of the quadrant Comfortable Uncomfortable. Now you rise to the challenge, your mindset is ‘I can do this!’ and your comfort level starts to increase even more. This continues to happen until you reach a threshold where you become comfortable being comfortable with what you have learned. Which brings you full circle to the left upper part of the quadrant Comfortable Comfortable. But this time your plateau is a level higher.
Until your mindset is plateaued out again and — you guessed it — you start the journey all over again with your next challenge. Ad infinitum.
Going back to the previous example: when you are in the uncomfortable uncomfortable mindset, you are trying to figure out how to listen better and not to interrupt. You may try to take a course, find a respectable coach, watch interview videos, observe how others behave in meetings, ask for feedback, and so on. You start to get a handle on how to approach this and start to try out whatever technique you use to make it work. You get positive feedback regarding the change people observe in you, which boasts your mindset that you are on the right track. At one point, (active) listening becomes natural to you. In other words: you are comfortable comfortable with just listening and only respond when needed.
As a personal side-note: there is a reason why I use the active listening as an example, as this was one of my challenges earlier in my career: talking too much, too loud and interrupting all the time. Over the years, I went through the quadrant multiple times for just this challenge alone and have grown to be much more of an active listener than a talker. Have I reached the peak of my listening plateau ? No, not at all. But I keep an eye on the peak, be mindful of my current plateau and have no problem going through the quadrant again if there is a listening challenge for me to take on. Whether it is something I want to do or whether people candidly tell me ‘You should really do something about this.’
Having gone through the quadrant myself many times for different challenges, I personally find the Leap of Faith and the Rise to the Challenge mindsets the hardest, but also the most rewarding. As this is really where you learn, in particular about yourself (although that depends on the challenge). This is also where it may become very uneasy and uncomfortable to the point that you just want to give up. Please don’t, as that means that you are on to something. This is exactly what is supposed to happen; it is all part of the learning curve. Sometimes you just have to dig deeper in the mind and soul to come out stronger.
That said, over the years, I have also seen a lot of people for whom getting out of the Danger Zone is actually their biggest challenge. And — by now — you know that this is the first critical step of the journey.
In conclusion: If you are on a Plateau (for whatever reason) and you are willing to take on this journey on a regular basis, you will grow as a person and as a professional. I promise you.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this.
Enjoy the journey!
P.S. Based on my conversations with people over the years, I am sure that you also have (lots of) questions. Examples are ‘How do I get out of a Danger Zone?’, ‘How do I know that I am on a Plateau in first place?’, ‘How long does a typical journey take?’, and ‘When do I know that I am comfortable comfortable again?’. All great questions, which I will answer in my next blog post. So, if you like what I wrote, stay tuned. And by all means, reach out to me directly (email) and/or leave a comment in case of questions, thoughts, ideas or remarks!
