Stepping out of the comfort zone can be nerve-wracking, even if you’ve done it before.
And while I do believe that it does get better the more you practice, for a large portion of the journey, it’s going to feel new every single time you try to tackle something. At least, that was my experience—going into a third interview felt like going into my first interview, not like “hey, I’ve done this two times already, you’ll be fine!”
But no matter what, I think we can all agree that the only way to face what we fear is… well, to face them. To start somewhere.
I’m a believer that progress is slow, and it takes incremental steps to get there. In this article, I’ll introduce a metric I like to call the comfort level bar, or comfort level score. It looks like this:
The comfort level bar or score is meant to represent just how big of an incremental step you may be taking, and will accompany some of my articles as a point of reference and a tool for readers.
This metric is, of course, quite subjective. Your definition of “risk” may differ from mine, after all. While there will always be a measure of subjectivity in this score, I have tried to reduce some of it by posting the criteria I will be using to calculate it.
How the Score is Developed
The comfort level score is a factor of the following criteria, with the following weightings that add up to 100%:
- Risk (35%): How risky or “bold” this action is; the “fear” aspect of an action. Some questions include: are there any negative consequences to you or other people if you attempt this? Is this something relatively easy for anyone to do on their first try, or would it require some guts?
- Ease of Implementation (65%): How easy it is to implement an action. This is further broken down into three weightings:
- Time (20%): How much time does it take to get this action both implemented and maintained?
- Effort (25%): How much effort does it take to get this action both implemented and maintained?
- Resources (20%): Do you need a specific skill, expertise, or any other kind of resource to get this action both implemented and maintained?
Each one of these is filled in with a value of 1-5, multiplied by the weightings, and summed—just like a decision matrix. When calculating your own comfort level score, you can feel free to tweak some of the values and weightings to your own risk level as you see fit.
Below is an example scoring table using the above weightings.
| Example Action | Risk (35%) | Time (20%) | Effort (25%) | Resources (25%) | Total (100%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Using a simple to-do list | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.00 (1) |
| Tracking your time regularly | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1.75 (2) |
| Talking to 10 strangers per week | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.85 (4) |
Conclusion
I hope the introduction of the comfort level bar helps with deciding where you are at the moment, and what step you could reasonably take next—and hopefully, make taking that next step easier.
Stay awake, daydreamers,
— Kharis (Worth the Wake) 🌻
