IndexAbstractStepping Out of Your Comfort ZoneThe Challenges of Being UncomfortableFear of Losing the State of ComfortMotivation and Personal GrowthVarious Reasons for Feeling UncomfortableConclusionWorks CitedAbstractI have always been encouraged to step out of my comfort zone or get comfortable with being uncomfortable, maybe since my fourth grade. As time went by, this word rang in my head. In particular, now more than ever it seems to be central to all the choices I make on a daily basis. There are reasons why we don't want to leave our comfort zone, explained later in this article, which can be related to most of us. The reason we don't want to step out of our comfort zone is because of the unknown change and discomfort. In searching for answers to questions like: where does this term actually come from? How does being in a comfort zone affect our daily activities? Is it possible to get out of all this? I was able to reflect my opinions in detail in this article, which helps me answer these and similar questions. I can definitely say that stepping out of your comfort zone is not easy if you don't have the necessary motivation. Motivation is important because it allows us to stop asking questions and instead help achieve goals. Motivation is a virtue that helps us transform a good thought into an immediate fruitful action. The same is explained by the topic “Maslow's Hierarchy Needs” (Maslow, 1943) by Abraham Maslow in the pyramid, which includes human curiosity that helps to achieve goals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zone As humans, we always adapt to our routines, as they are comfortable and reliable. We all have an anxiety zone that, once activated, increases our performance. It is in this state that our mind can think outside the box and create a consistent level of performance. Getting out of our comfort zone to push ourselves to reach the next level is quite difficult. But this is not something new for us humans, in every success story there are cases where people put in effort to succeed. And also keep in mind that if we overexert our brains, it causes anxiety, and too much anxiety will cause stress and lower productivity and creativity. Our impulse is to return to our comfort zone if things become more difficult for us. Most of us in reality, be it personal or professional career; we learn to grow and deal with situations outside our comfort zones and we tend to get discouraged and adapt to those we think are easy. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty once said, “Growth and comfort do not coexist. This applies to people, companies and nations" (Rometty, 2018). We always feel like we are taking away crucial and strategic things from our lives such as: authenticity, competence levels, morality, likeability and much more. The Challenges of Being UncomfortableIn the podcast Hidden Brain: The Edge Effect (Vedantam, 2018), the author talks about the questions that human beings in general ask themselves. We often ask ourselves: how do people work together regardless of their differences we have in terms of ethnicity, creed, caste, language and many other things What usually happens when strangers meet and how exactly does this help to stimulate creative thoughts? because as an individual it is easy to understand through experiencesrather than simply learning from another person's life. So, I happened to look back at my past and list the events where I had to step out of my comfort zone to eliminate the odds in my life and make something useful out of it. I remember reading a poem in eighth grade - "Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost (Frost, 1916), when he first provided the blueprint for the poem. In the poem it is said that “Two roads diverged in a forest and I chose the one less traveled – and that made the difference”. The same thing happened in my life too, I had to choose between different groups of my major after high school and I had few options to choose from. I had computer and electronic science subjects where I knew many people who guided me: my family and my friends. But I have always had an interest in another subject: civil engineering. Many advised me not to go for this option as the job was mainly aimed at boys and men as it would require more strength (literally) and hard work. But I wasn't ready to give up and worked hard enough to successfully get my degree in my favorite subject. There have been many similar situations where I had to step out of my comfort zone to achieve my desires. In all these cases I understood something about the other that proved beneficial to me. I want to mention another more recent experience where I had to completely change and adapt to a new ecosystem. It was when I was moving from India to the United States of America, to pursue my Masters degree here. It's not that I had to step out of my comfort zone, it's that I had no idea how the culture here would embrace me and how I would deal with other differences. I flew almost 9000 air miles to a completely different continent with obviously different time zones. I observed so many differences compared to my home. If I could list a few, they would be food, clothing, culture, time zone (11 hours 30 minutes difference from here to India), etiquette, education, religion and weather. I've had a change in all of these attributes, of course, we always strive to look for options that can help our growth, and I've been looking for mine. But thinking about having to deal with all of this even before coming to the United States made things a little complicated. I have always been a lazy person and my parents helped me with everything they could. When I moved here, I had no one to rely on but myself. I was initially afraid that I might end up making mistakes that would affect my education and my parents, because they were by my side, against all odds. I was in a sort of transition zone, where all things seemed new to me. Fear of losing comfort As I mentioned in the list above, like all the differences, which resulted in a strange kind of feeling (maybe I can say that I was far from my comfort zone). I had this fear of making new mistakes, which could cost me more besides money and time, but also the courage to step out of my comfort zone and fail is shaping my personality based on my mistakes. I had the opportunity to see the means to achieve success right in front of me and how I could make the best of it, to make my life creative. I always had the feeling that people here couldn't understand my accent for some reason, and that I might face difficulties, but once I started talking to the people around me it made me feel comfortable. This being my first step, I understood that a person must know his true potential qualities. When we think about creativity, we see so many changes happening around us, ina blink of an eye. However, has creativity been valued throughout the ages and why do you think creativity is important? For example, consider the great arts of painters like Pablo and Picasso that were valued so highly. It is not the oil paints or brushes that are expensive, it is the innovation and creativity in their vision that has attracted people to buy the paintings and made them antiques. So, more or less, creativity has managed to impact things that happen all over the world. In my case, I used my creativity and my experiences to adapt to the new atmosphere that surrounded me and I can successfully say that here I found friends ready to help me, and also my professors who support me in my career. I have had enough experiences here that have helped shape me into the person I am today. I feel I have the courage to understand the unfolding situations around me and act accordingly. I'm pretty sure I can talk to people and get the answers I need. Furthermore, I will graduate with a Master's degree and do my best for my personal life and professional career. Motivation and personal growth This part of the document mainly reflects on motivation and its impact on human beings, both on a personal and professional level. The author of The Eureka Factor (Beeman, 2015), talks about being motivated and how that helps people know their next step in the future. This is the place where a person cannot be selfish, sharing insights with the other person and helping them achieve success through your motivation gives you immense joy and satisfaction and I can proudly say this based on my personal experiences. In this particular book, the author talks about different types of motivation and how they affect the environment. Moreover, different stories explain them even better. The different types of motivation – Being specific about the items you need, Emphasis on the individual aspect, which is once again classified into two further categories: prevention and promotion. Reading the examples provided in the book to explain insights into creativity and motivation, I remember some that my mother talked about. It reminds me of my mother telling a story, where a man with two horses on a journey meets another person. And then the first one wanted to rest and realized that he had only one rope, with which he could only tie one horse. So, the second person advises the first person to tie one horse with a rope and make sure the second horse sees it too and then acts as if he tied the second one too (but without the rope). And to the man's surprise, the second horse also acted as if it were tied. The lesson my mother tried to explain to me was that, when we look at things around us, we simply make it as something already is. This is exactly what the author of the book is talking about: functional fixity. We talk about this from the beginning of this lesson and how that affects creativity in us and how we limit ourselves in our brains and fail to do what's best for us. When it comes to my personal and professional life, I think there's always a conflict between what my brain wants and what my heart wants, and therein lies all the difference. I would look at motivation as something that drives me to fight that war. I always had and have this feeling of standing out from everyone, at first I didn't know how it would happen, but I always knew that I would develop the courage to make it a reality. It was my parents who always supported me and advised me in everything I did. Every human being needs some kind of motivation to succeed in their life, no matter how big or small. It was my parents' financial circumstances that got me