Christoffer Endresen: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to episode number eight. Uh, this episode, it's just me and you, the listener, and today I'm going to talk about leaving the comfort zone. A thing that I see people don't quite understand is the purpose of setting goals. The purpose of setting a goal is not necessarily for you to reach it, though that will be ideal.
The purpose of a goal is for you to grow. It sets the stage that you have something that you're going to stretch towards becoming and achieving, and it stretches you outside of your comfort zone, and that creates growth. So the purpose of a goal is to facilitate growth for you as a human being, or it might be for the company you're working for, or might be you and your dog and you as a team.
That is the purpose of a goal. [00:01:00] The problem is that if you're willing to grow, let's say, yes, I set this goal and I'm going to work towards it. And as you're getting close to your comfort zone, you know that that goal is not within that zone. That you have to go beyond what is comfortable, and that is when things become difficult, you have to do things differently, and you have to leave that comfort.
And it's so interesting how your mind and how your body and how your surrounding responds to you when you're stepping outside of that comfort zone. A lot of people that I've talked to say that sometime they feel this imposter syndrome where they're trying to be someone who they're not. And that's because who they think they are is within the limits of their comfort zone, and they're now going beyond that, either trying to [00:02:00] accomplish something they had never accomplished before, and they're trying to be someone they never been before.
What you end up with is that you are face to face with your own limiting beliefs, and if someone else is telling you that it cannot be done, you're also facing limiting beliefs, but it's not your own. It's those people's limiting belief. Interesting thing is that they are very willing to tell you what is possible and what is not possible, and we've all been in this situation.
If you have a driving's license, you can definitely relate to this. The first time you got into a car, sitting in the driver's seat, actually trying to drive a car, that was quite uncomfortable. It was scary, it was spooky. Now, let's say that you have a driving license and you've been driving for several years.
Getting into that car is not scary anymore. It once used to be [00:03:00] difficult and hard and scary, but now it's easy. One of the things that I see that people do is that when they set goals is that they set goals that are within their comfort zone, but that doesn't meet the requirements of it being a goal. If you're going to set a goal and ensure that that goal is something that makes you stretch and be aware that that will actually create some discomfort once you're starting to take action towards it.
Knowing and understanding what will happen will empower you because if you have an understanding that yes, I'm setting a goal that is outside of my comfort zone, and that means that I need to step outside of my comfort zone, and that's going to create discomfort both in how my inner talking is, how my body will react, and how all the people in my environment will respond to it.
Knowing that you can [00:04:00] predict that it will happen, and by predicting it, you can then start to look at measures. It could be tools, it could be strategies to deal with these situations so that you actually have a plan to deal with them once they show up. That means that you can act despite how you feel and then continue to take action towards accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish because.
If you're in the not knowing situation and you don't understand that setting a goal and working towards it will push you outside your comfort zone and creates all these kinds of reactions, then what usually happens is that you fall back into the comfort zone where it feels safe, where it feels comfortable.
It doesn't mean that it is safe, it doesn't mean that it is comfortable, but it's. At least something, you know what is, there's an expression saying the better the devil, you know, than the devil you don't. [00:05:00] But the thing is here is that if you can learn to anticipate the reactions that you will have both in your inner talking and with your body.
Then learning those strategies and tools will allow you to push through and get to the other side. And what will happen then is that what was once outside of your comfort zone is now within your comfort zone. You have expanded your comfort zone. One of my favorite books is How to Be Miserable by an author called Patterson.
He's a Canadian psychologist and. In his book, he talks about the comfort zone, and he talks about the comfort zone in a way that if you are not consciously expanding your comfort zone, it will shrink. And that's an interesting phenomena. If you're not expanding voluntarily, going outside [00:06:00] your comfort zone, the thing that is now within your comfort zone is going to become uncomfortable in the future.
And that means that saying yes to growth. Setting goals and working towards that and work through this uncomfortable period that you will experience once you're outside of the comfort zone is what creates the growth. And when I talk with people and when I coach with people, one of the questions that I always start out with is, what do you want?
Being clear about what you want, ensuring, and most likely, if you are clear about what you want, you will see that it is outside of your comfort zone. The next thing you need to understand is what is required of you to accomplish that. And then the next question is, are you willing to put in the work? So if you are clear about what you want.
[00:07:00] What is required for you to accomplish that and you're willing to do the work, then you will have to be willing to do the work. You have to deal with all the things that will happen outside of that comfort zone. So then the question is to you, the listener. Reflect for a moment, what is it that you want, if we tie it especially to agility, what are the things that you wanted in the past that you have not yet acquired or accomplished?
And you might have given up on because you went outside your comfort zone, you weren't prepared for what you would meet there, and then you're retreated back. And what about giving it another shot? When you step outside of the comfort zone, you have this perspective that you are the only one who's [00:08:00] experiencing this.
The truth is, and I know that you know this, is that everyone that goes outside of their comfort zone is going to feel uncomfortable. And you also know that if you're able to continue to take action, MITs in all the chaos, all the emotions, all that negative self-talk and limiting beliefs that are showing up suddenly, then you'll eventually get to the other side.
And this applies to life in general. Could be. Changing your job. It could be signing up for that big event or signing up for the tryouts for the national team. For some of you, if you're new to agility, it could be entering your first competition. That could be scary enough, and it could also be for the professional athletes when you're running last at the final in a WC.[00:09:00]
The thing is that as long as you are growing. You will always experience these emotions or maybe limiting beliefs or negative self-talk, and that is just a part of the game. If you can expect that to happen and be prepared that it will happen, you're better prepared for that so that you can actually deal with it once it shows up.
I want to tell you a story. We're going back to December last year. I had finished my book. I've done something that I didn't think I could do, which was to write a book, and it was ready. Everything was formatted, and I wanted to upload it as a ebook on my website. And then I also wanted to have a physical edition, and I [00:10:00] used Amazon to sort of publish the book when I was uploading the book to Amazon.
There was a button saying publish. Everything was ready. Everything was prepared, but my mind and my body was freaking out. I felt physically unwell. It was so scary because publishing that book was so far beyond the ideas and beliefs that I had about myself and what I could do. Yes, going back to the imposter syndrome, who am I to publish this book?
Who am I to write a book? Who am I I to write a book about agility? I'm not even an agility handler, and all these thoughts went through my mind. And as I was sitting there experiencing it, I kind of took a step back and I started to observe those thoughts, those patterns, those emotions, [00:11:00] those bodily sensations.
And then I understood, wow, I'm on the right track, because I knew really well that I was outside of my comfort zone, but this was just a clear sign for me to continue and push through. Clicking publish on the computer felt like the most difficult thing to do because I was going back and forth from the computer really forcing myself to get to that point.
Did I want to postpone? Absolutely. And was I prepared that I would have such a reaction? Yes and no. I was prepared that the reaction would be there of some sort, but I wasn't prepared that it would be that intense. But I ended up doing it anyway, and the same thing with this podcast. It was really uncomfortable.
To publish it. I was doing the preparation, I was doing the [00:12:00] work, I was figuring out what software to use, what microphones to use, how the concept should look like, and I also predicted that I would probably feel the same type of emotions as I did with publishing the book. And yes, I was right, but based on the previous experience I now had.
More and better tools and strategies to ensure that I would publish the podcast, and it was a much easier experience than publishing the book. A lot of well-known agility handlers and coaches, they really emphasize the importance of the mental game when it comes to this sport. But there is a lack of clarity about how to actually do that.
How can you prove your mental game? I wrote the agility mindset book so that people actually would get more clarity. But I also have come to the conclusion that I need to take it to the next level because reading [00:13:00] a book about mental training and acquire the knowledge is just as effective as reading a book about strength training and hoping that when once you get to the end of the book, to the last page, you become fit.
The thing is, and you also know this, is that you have to take the knowledge and put it into practice. That is the only time and only way that you will gain a benefit from the knowledge. If you don't, you'll end up with knowing more, but actually feeling worse because you know what to do. But you still don't do it, and that is what we call the Knowing Doing gap.
You actually increase that gap between what you know and what you do, and it would be quite easy for me to say that, well, I provided you with the knowledge. Now it's your responsibility to put it into practice. However, I decided to ask [00:14:00] myself a different question. The question that I asked myself is, what can I do?
In order to increase the chances for people handlers to take this knowledge and actually apply it, to take tools that is used in different sports and applied it to agility so that they can actually be mentally prepared for what they consider as their run their big event and perform well together with their dog.
My answer to this question is that I need to facilitate an environment that satisfied the human needs, and this is based on the self-determination theory, which I also wrote about in my book, which is competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When we talk about competence, competence means not just knowledge, but also skills and experiences.
When we talk about autonomy, we talk about [00:15:00] having a sense of choosing your own path, your own direction, and how things lead up. So you, it's almost like you being in the driver's seat, that increases motivation and then it's relatedness. That you not, you're not doing it alone, but you're doing it with other people, with like-minded people.
With people that are in a similar situation as you, but not just getting from them, but also contributing that others are gaining from the experiences and competence that you have. The best way to envision this is that you're climbing a ladder and the people there are. Further up the ladder than you are reaching down and stretching up a hand whilst you are also doing the same.
And this pushes growth for everyone. And I really believe in the vision that everyone, every agility handler, every team can show up to the start line [00:16:00] and be calm, confident, and do their very best. Enjoy the moment and the competition together with their dog. So in other words, that became my next challenge to build a community that focuses on how agility handlers can improve their mental game and focus solely on that.
It's about providing with online courses to develop these different mental skills and putting it into action. By creating and engaging conversations with like-minded people about the struggles they might have about how to overcome them, but also share the wins and hold each other accountable.
Accountability, it's such a great tool. Accountability is an insurance against failure because once someone else is holding you accountable, the chances for you to follow through with action is very high. And [00:17:00] then. You get to do it in your own pace when you want, but that also means that I once again, am taking another step outside of my comfort zone because this week I'm launching such a community, and maybe that is your next challenge as well, to improve your mental game, to have the courage to invest in yourself and not just in.
What benefits the dog, but to be honest, whatever you do that develops you as a handler, as a teammate, that is investing in your dog, that is investing in your team because if you grow, your dog or dogs will benefit. We're at the end of this episode. These episodes are much shorter. But they give a short insight in something that is important.
And I would encourage you to consciously [00:18:00] step outside of your comfort zone. Whatever it is, it's doing something different. It's doing something new. And it doesn't have to be a big leap, but it needs to be a stretch and it's, it could be a great exercise for you to actually reflect on the things like, what do I actually want?
That's question number one. What do I want? Question number two, what is required of me to accomplish that? Who do I need to become? What skills do I need to develop in order to accomplish that? And then the third and most important question is, am I willing to pay the price for it? And if you can say yes to all those three, then it's facilitating an environment that is holding you accountable so that you are taking action on a continuous basis.
Expect it to be uncomfortable and learn how to deal with that discomfort. If you [00:19:00] follow through despite that discomfort, eventually that discomfort will disappear and you've grown and you stretched your comfort zone. And the cool thing then. It's that the whole thing happens again. The cycle happens again.
You set new goals that are outside of your new comfort zone, and you have to go outside your comfort zone again, but this time with more experience. And better tools. One thing that isn't uncomfortable is to subscribe to this podcast, at least. I hope it's not uncomfortable. It is easy, and I hope that what you hear at this podcast is valuable, that it becomes such a tool for you that you can use for free in order to develop your mental game.
And if you are interested to learn more. Or to sign up for the agility mindset community. You'll find the links in the show [00:20:00] notes wherever platform you are using, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, app, podcast, et cetera. Once again, thank you so much for listening. My name is Christopher Anderson, and I encourage you to take that step outside of your comfort zone.
