Hey there! This is TOP episode 105.  Comfort Zone.  Leave It Or Expand It?

My name’s Ola and I am an English teacher. My goal is to help you start speaking English with confidence and get rid of speaking barriers. I believe it is achievable for you and it’s time you started speaking English fearlessly! Go to my website for full transcripts and worksheets to each episode. Happy learning! 

Hello hello, welcome back, I’m glad you’re here, thank you for coming. Thank you for your presence, this podcast wouldn’t exist with you. Today we’re talking about our blockades. Language blockades. And I’ve picked a buzzword. Comfort zone. Are you tired of this word yet? Well, brace yourself, you hear this word a few times today. If you think it’s a tacky topic, well, even better. I love cliche, I realised that the easiest truths, all these well known phrases, however cheesy they may seem they are true. Cliche is cliche for a reason. 

Some say you should leave your comfort zone. You should jump right out of it, expose yourself and be seen, be heard. You should go with the flow, explore, test, test yourself, challenge yourself. Take the bull by the horns and run the world.

On the other hand, psychologists say we should not risk that much and we shouldn’t go to such extremes. Instead of going all in we should rather expand our comfort zones. Make them bigger, add new skills, new experiences and by doing so create one huge comfort zone. 

Which approach is better? Do they have anything in common? How does it apply to language learning? How does it correspond to you breaking your language barrier? What’s better? 

My dear listener, as always, I speak from my experience, I speak from my personal experience with fear of speaking English as well as from my students’ experience. Mind that I’m not a self-appointed psychologist or a coach, nevertheless I do see myself as a coach but only to my 1 to 1 clients. So, bear in mind I’m not your coach, because coaching is working 1 to 1 with a client. 

All I’m saying is my knowledge is based on research, extensive research and my practice. I do hope I can help you here. If I do, and you feel like you’d like to thank me and support my work please tell somebody about the Teacher Ola Podcast and share this episode somewhere on your social media platforms if possible. You can also subscribe if you haven’t yet. Become a member of TOPeople, receive worksheets right to your inbox. Go to teacherola.com/newsletter. 

Let me unpack my thoughts upfront. First I wanted to talk about leaving a comfort zone, then about expanding one and finally I wanted to compare both, but I realised I really can’t. Why? It’s because to me these approaches are two identical twins. It’s just a  matter of words. The core of the whole idea is development. Growth. You want to get better at speaking, at feeling comfortable with using English and that’s that. So I’ve noticed people argue over those words, to leave to expand. No, don’t you dare leaving your comfort zone! You’ll die out there! You need your comfort zone, if you leave it you are out, you are not attached to it, you don’t have any support. You know what? How come? How can you lose something that is you?? My comfort zone is not a  place, a room, a cozy blanket, it’s my confidence. 

It’s the whole equipment, all my skills, well known tracks, grooves. I take my comfort zone with me wherever I go. I can’t, because it’s not feasible to leave it away from me. It’s just a metaphor, why don’t we all come down? 

Ok, let’s say that hypothetically when I leave my comfort zone I’ am detached from it. I’m separated from it and I have no connection to it. I’m all alone, exposed to something new and scarry. I suddenly forget all my silks, my talents, and the hard work I put into so far. Let’s imagine that. What occurs to me now is this, wait a second. Don’t I come back to my comfort zone when my challenge, my new experience is over? I do. Where else would I go? I go home, to my safe place. And well I don’t mean literally because the comfort zone is not a physical place. And guess what! Each time I come back to my precious comfort zone I notice it grows bigger and bigger. After each adventure I challenge myself and I see it expands. And here we are, our comfort zones expand and grow. So, my perspective is that. These two approaches describe the same effect. Growing, getting better and better at different things. 

Maybe, but just maybe the whole argument is raised to distract us from growing? I don’t know, but it feels like the whole discussion is meaningless. What is meaningful at this point is that if we want to develop, change, grow, improve we need to get comfortable with discomfort. Doesn’t matter what you call it, expanding or leaving your comfort zone, but comfort won’t take you far. 

How to do that? How to challenge yourself on a daily basis? How does it refer to a language blockade, in other words how to put all this into practice? How to go out of your comfort zone in terms of speaking English. Well I won’t give you an answer today. We’ll look into this in a month. Please think it through, give me your ideas, how to take a risk, how to expose yourself, how to tap into the dream you’re nurturing and let me know. Let me know in the comment or email me or dm me on Instagram, where I hang out daily. What to do in order to expand or leave your comfort zone when we’re talking about speaking English? 

Personally, I do prefer the approach in which you expand your comfort zone. I see that it has worked and still works every day for me and I see it works for my students. For my people. See, I don’t ask them to write articles or record long audios as homeworks at the very beginning of our sessions. I rather ask the them to make short sentences, read them out loud during classes, and so on. 

I assign easy materials at the beginning. Ain’t that natural? At the same time it’s natural that the level of difficulty has to grow simultaneously because you want your students, you want yourself to be in the growth zone. 

Tomato, tomato, potato, potato, call it what you want. Drop your comfort zone, leave your comfort zone or expand it nevertheless, grow. Always move forward. Move the needle forward. There’s always more, there’s always something to learn. Have you noticed a funny thing? The more you learn, the less you know? Yep. In any field it works this way. Physics, Maths, generally science, but also languages. There is no end. 

This is actually good news. There’s no end to your development, is there? Maybe today your dream is to be able to make a phone call in English? Maybe your dream today is to go on holiday abroad and talk to local people fluently? Ok, today your dream may seem big or small but your dreams tomorrow will be completely different. You will become hungry for more. You might start running  a podcast in English or you might wanna give a speech in public. No limits really. But I guess I’m digressing now, so let’s wrap up. 

What’s the best way to do it? Of course by making you speak. Now you will listen and have a chance to repeat out loud. I’ve prepared 10 sentences to practice. Here we go:

Get out of your comfort zone!

That experience took me way out of my comfort zone.

Are you tired of this word yet?

Take the bull by the horns and run the world.

Which approach is better? 

How does it apply to language learning?

I speak from my experience.

It’s just a  matter of words.

My comfort zone is not a  place, a room, a cozy blanket, it’s my confidence.

Where else would I go?

We need to get comfortable with discomfort.

Please think it through, give me your ideas

Ain’t that natural?

Always move forward. Move the needle forward.

You will become hungry for more.

Well done! Now, go to your inbox and grab the worksheet in order to test yourself. Complete the worksheet with translations. Does it scare you a bit? Are you afraid you won’t make it? Ha, this is the perfect moment to step up and overcome the fear. Just do it. If you aren’t a member of TOPeople download the worksheet at teacherola.com/105 and become one. It’s free. 

If you find this episode useful, tell your friends about my podcast, share it with one person. Share it anywhere you can.

Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next Wednesday! We’re going to discuss the lyrics of one song by the Weeknd and Ariana Grande. Be here next week!  Happy learning. Take care! Stay fearless and say it out loud! Bye!