A friend once told me that their best work came when they didn’t know how to do the thing yet. You know, the first time they tried gymnastics they were terrified. The thought of landing badly after the tumble terrified them, but the adrenaline, this made her focus and she scored big points. The second time? She knew what to expect she was calmer, more comfortable and this is where mistakes were made. Comfort smothered the concentration and ruined the precision.
We think comfort means safety, sadly in the space where you want to create, comfort is not our friend.
Comfort is the slippers as opposed the shiny biz shoes.
Comfort is leaning on “what worked last time” instead of taking the risk of new tumble combinations, variations in movement, new experiments. Comfort is cozy. But it’s also static. And static kills movement.
The Push and the Pull
We need comfort in some parts of life. Familiar food. A safe home. Routine. But when it comes to creativity, predictability dulls the edge. To grow, you have to risk the wobble. To create, being bad at something for long enough will get us good.
Think about when you last learned something new. Whatsapp for one! A camera setting. Curried over poached egg. A musical instrument. You hesitated, maybe stumbled, right? Stumbling is progress. Comfort would have kept you in our seat and stopped you from even trying.
What to Do Instead
Pick something you don’t know how to do and give it ten messy tries.
Choose a responsibility that feels slightly too big for your current skills.
Shift a habit that’s lost its excitement for something that makes you … nervous.
It doesn’t have to be massive. Maybe that curry in your cooking. Bare feet instead of slippers. One new way of showing that you care. The important part is that you shake yourself away from the slippers of comfort into the, not so much the gymnastics, but the stretch of creativity.
Try it with your next presentation. Surprise yourself and give others vision.
CharlieKenny.me 