What’s so wrong with being in your comfort zone?

Maybe just stay there. It’s nice, people know you. No one shouts.

I’m making this piece free to read for everyone, in the hopes that some of you who are free subscribers might upgrade, or in the hopes that if anyone chooses to share this (🙏🏼) that someone might jive with my world view and join the gang. Thanks for being here, as always – grateful doesn’t cut it!

After seven long years of freelancing (and one year of in-house work in 2024 👀) in what I can only describe as the absolute Wild West of career territories, that (occasionally) wonderful world of self-employment, I recently went back to what I spent the previous decade becoming an expert in: I edited a print magazine again.

From conception to completion, from blank page to bound product. From "what are we even making here?" to "here it is, in your hands, made of paper and ink”.

And oh my GOD it felt like coming home.

Not in a vague, soft-focus, stock-photo-of-a-woman-in-a-cashmere-blanket kind of way. I mean it felt like I’d landed back on my home planet. A planet where I spoke the same language as the natives. Everyone knew me, and conversation flowed naturally. Where my instincts were sharp again. Where my confidence, long diffused and depleted by years of pivoting and pitching and rejection and wondering if I was doing literally ANYTHING right, came snapping back like a taut elastic band.

The first time I opened InDesign again was the moment your body remembered what your brain had forgotten. My fingers had the muscle memory, they held the key, they knew all the shortcuts that my brain could never have recalled. Within minutes I felt like a pro at it again.

Commissioning editorial was seamless, I knew what to ask for, when to ask for it, who to go to. Where bumps in the road happened, and of course they did, I didn’t freeze or rush to Google something or spiral into a panic pit. I just… knew what to do. I solved problems instead of catastrophising. I trusted my gut. I felt competent. I felt experienced. I felt like the best person for the job.

And honestly? Those feelings had been missing for a while. Not necessarily because I wasn’t the best person for any of the other jobs I’m doing (because on some level, I must be, right?) but my self-confidence and my belief in my abilities had taken rejection after rejection (in freelance life) and then the crater that was left behind after the career meteor hit at the end of 2024… Safe to say I hadn’t felt genuinely good about work in a long time.

Anyway, the magazine experience got me thinking. (What an utterly Carrie Bradshaw way to transition between points, sorry, must do better.)

The myth of the “brave” discomfort zone

We’ve been fed a steady diet of hustle-culture gospel that screams at us to get out of your comfort zone! They (who are they?!) say that real growth only happens when you're uncomfortable. On the edge, slightly panicked, possibly crying in the bathroom of a co-working space. And sure, sometimes that’s true. A little discomfort can stretch you, teach you things, shake you awake if you’re asleep at the career wheel.

But what no one tells you is that being outside your comfort zone for years – flailing, freelance-hustling, unsure, unanchored – doesn’t always lead to growth. Sometimes it just leads to self-doubt. Sometimes it erodes the part of you that was quietly confident before you kept throwing yourself into the deep end without a life jacket. Long term comfort zone avoidance, in other words, took away any belief I had in myself.

I bloody like my comfort zone

The term "comfort zone" has bad juju, if you ask me. Like, it's synonymous with mediocrity or laziness. But psychologists define it as a psychological state where things feel familiar and under control. Not boring. Not stagnant. Just stable. And if, like me, you’re already prone to a bit of instability (!!) a bit of career comfort might be just the ticket. Because in that secure space, your stress is low and your performance tends to be high. You're not holding your breath. You're not second-guessing yourself every five minutes. You’re in a flow state.

And that flow is magic. It’s what you get when your skills meet the moment. It’s not coasting! To me, it feels like flying. As Jen An said in one of my favourite moments in Friends; ‘you’re settin’ sail up the Hudson. You’ve got the wind in your ha…Arms’.

There’s a concept called self-efficacy, coined by psychologist Albert Bandura, which is essentially your belief in your own ability to succeed in a particular situation. You build self-efficacy by doing things you’re good at, and doing them well. That’s what this magazine edit gave back to me. That deep, internal, ‘oh hold on a spicy second, I actually know what I’m doing’ feeling.

The flip side of stretching too far

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve learned a lot while freelancing. I had to be resourceful and inventive and learn to deal with rejection and insecurity. I’ve grown in ways I couldn’t have inside a stable 9 to 5 for sure. But I’ve also spent a lot of time feeling slightly out of my depth. Like I was winging it more often than not. There’s a difference between being challenged and being constantly unsettled. Between stepping outside your comfort zone and living there, full-time, with no return ticket booked.

There is some science to back this up, because I wouldn’t want you just taking my word for it. There’s a thing called the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Basically, what it says is that there’s a sweet spot called the “optimal anxiety” zone. A spot that’s *just* outside your comfort zone, where learning happens. But if you go too far, you hit the panic zone. Performance tanks. Confidence wobbles. You don’t get stronger, you just get tired (and in my case, really sad).

Maybe not all growth is good?

Growth is usually presented as this totally linear thing with a super clear before-and-after and a shiny transformation montage. But for some, me included, growth can feel like erosion. Especially when it comes at the cost of your self-esteem, or when you’re in survival mode.

Research has shown that staying too long outside your comfort zone can trigger imposter syndrome and burnout. You start to internalise every mistake as a personal failing or flaw. Every new skill, and how quickly you master it, becomes a referendum on your intelligence. You're not learning, you're not growing – you’re just scraping through.

Oh, what’s that? Time for me to swing in with a RaDiCaL sUgGeStiOn? KK.

What if the comfort zone isn’t a place to escape, but a place to GO BACK to? A place to refill your confidence reserves? Think of your comfort zone like your iPhone charger (bear with me as I cobble together this metaphor). You’re out there, depleting your work energy, and your comfort zone is the place you go to recharge, get a system update, have a little rest, and then go back out into the world ready for anything.

That’s what editing felt like for me. I wasn’t playing it safe and hiding from growth. I was playing to my strengths and anchoring myself to them. There’s something incredibly energising about being good at something.

So what now?

If I could edit magazines full-time, I absolutely would. It’s not that I don’t like variety or new challenges. It’s that I now recognise what it feels like to operate from a place of strength, clarity and that buzz I get when I’m given creative freedom within the confines of a magazine.

When I left that project, I noticed something. I felt energised as opposed to depleted, even though it was hard work. I was immediately better in all areas of my work, even the messy ones, buoyed by the experience, reminded that actually… I am good at something.

Three songs I’m loving lately:

This one

And this one

And lastly, this one

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Photo by Lucjano Kuci on Unsplash