Stepping Outside of your Comfort Zone
Today’s post is something that has been on my heart to share for awhile now. Basically since we found out that I was pregnant, I’ve been going over and over in my head how to make this space, both my blog and the AM Coffee Collective itself, bigger and better. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching about what direction I want my platform to go in. That’s scary. But that’s especially scary when your heart tells you to go in a new direction then the one you’re already in.
It’s scary because what I’m doing is a little out of the norm and not something I’ve seen done before. When I created The AM Coffee Collective I had a mission to provide a place for women to come together and learn from one another, share their stories, and a build a community. We have accomplished so much since starting that journey back in June. We have a thriving Facebook community with over 35 members, an amazing monthly newsletter that over 100 women subscribe to, and a newly launched book club that just selected the first book we’re reading together! Those are all pretty awesome things, if you ask me. But lately, it hasn’t seemed completely right.
I don’t know if what I’m saying will make sense to those of you who aren’t bloggers, but lately the blog and the community aspect have seemed like too much. Too much to handle together, too much variation, too much going on. I haven’t been blogging as much because (well, other than pregnancy fatigue) I haven’t felt inspired to write. I’ve been throwing myself into building up the newsletter and the community that my blog has kind of fallen by the wayside. I’ve actually managed to loose myself within this community and the blog.
If that sounds crazy to you, it’s because it is! Something like that shouldn’t be happening. So after a lot of brainstorming and praying, I’ve decided that it’s time to do something about it. Both my blog and The AM Coffee Collective can be great, but they can’t be great together. So I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone TREMENDOUSLY and splitting them up. It will sound insane to some business mined people who think that a brand shouldn’t change twice in the same year but I believe that part of being a creative entrepreneur is being flexible. Being able to pivot when you see areas for improvement.
Stepping outside of your comfort zone is hard. It is not easy for me to come to you guys and admit that all of the changes I made back in June weren’t exactly perfect. But what lies on the other side of your comfort zone? If you stay in your comfort zone for you entire life, are you learning anything new? What experiences are you missing? What opportunities are you missing? What would your life look like if you stepped outside of your comfort zone today?
I’ll get into the details about what exactly the changes are going to be later on but the bottom line is that this is completely out of my comfort zone. I don't like to admit that I’ve done something wrong, or that I’m not perfectly happy with what I’m creating. In an industry as saturated blogging, it can be even more difficult to step outside the comfort zone. It is so easy to stay in the comfort zone that others have set for you. Every blogger is unique but the way most bloggers actually blog and run their platforms is kind of the same. That’s why this is so scary.
Naturally, I reached out to the gals within the AM Coffee Collective Facebook group for some advice. The responses I got were incredible and I wanted to share them with you in the hopes of inspiring you to also take a chance and to step outside of your comfort zone. Here’s what they said:
There are two sayings that help me when I’m stepping out of my comfort zone. The first is the saying from We Bought a Zoo (if you haven’t seen it watch for a good cry), something along the lines of all it takes to make something crazy happen is 10 seconds of insane courage! How easy does that make something challenging sound? Only ten seconds. The next is something my mom always says. “You can do anything for (10 minutes/a day/a week/a semester”. I use that one at the gym all the time because going to the gym is way out of my comfort zone. “I can do anything for 10 more minutes” and it helps me to push myself a little further out of my comfort zone. - Carly
Something that’s helped me and my friends with stepping out of my comfort zone lately has been the fact that I’ll never be exactly where I am right now ever again.
Initially, it was an easy way to justify purchasing things on sale- “I’ll never get this for this price ever again!” And now it’s much more, I recently preparing to do a beauty pageant next summer, because I can. I took a roadtrip to Memphis, TN this week because realistically, I’ll never be a junior in college again and might not get the chance to go for a week like that again. I’m getting more involved on campus and in Charleston because I won’t be in undergrad forever and I might not live here forever. - Demi
I was blown away by both of these responses. Everything just clicked when I read them and I knew that what I was doing was the right thing. I’m not going to sit here and say that it makes it less scary knowing that it’s right for me and for this platform because that just isn’t true. But I am going to tell you to take more chances and to step outside of your comfort zone more often. Whatever that looks like for you, start doing it today.
If you have advice to offer for helping someone step outside their comfort zone, please leave it below! Let’s lift each other up and encourage each other to step outside of our comfort zones today!
On Friday, I’ll be sharing all about my plans for the blog and The AM Coffee Collective and what changes you can expect to see then. I want to quickly thank you guys for all of your continued support and encouragement!