Treading out into the wilderness of uncertainty

#59 - Christmas charity time 🎄

Hi there,

Snow’s back! The harsh cold has finally turned beautiful (and a little slippery - just ask my sister 🤭) as we head into the final week of term.

This week saw my parents-teacher meetings, which were all fine, my first Year 12 report coming out and preparation for 4 Christmas concerts to start the week. Lots of sport to keep up with as well.

Highlight of the week ⭐ : achieving a Distinction in my Saxophone exam. A super pick-me-up on a chilly Friday night journey home, delighted to have gotten a good score (I was doubtful I’d get that high a mark). More music making to come music emoji!

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Every holiday season, our school runs a charity project called ‘The Giving Tree’. Placed in the town shopping centre, members of the public donate items requested by 3 charities which we wrap up and deliver to them.

To raise awareness of the campaign and to get shoppers to buy gifts for the tree, we Sixth Formers have to stand by the tree (on a rota), handing out leaflets to passers-by, explaining the project and collecting donations.

I first did this on Tuesday along with 2 friends. Along with the biting cold freezing my fingers and toes, the snap of rejection was instant and unexpected. I felt like a salesperson, although I wasn’t one, finding myself walking up to strangers, speeding through the necessary spiel (saying the word ‘charity’ ASAP) and often being wholly rejected, sometimes rudely.¹

This was a foreign experience, even for an empathy guru like myself 😉, firmly out of my comfort zone. Yet, you know what, I don’t regret doing it. It’s given me a thicker skin (helpful in -1°C) but also an understanding of what it’s like to be a salesperson and the charitable generosity and donations we amassed, 10 bags of goodies, made the whole experience certainly worth it.

“The comfort zone”, a catch-all phrase in society these days, refers to behaviour that is extremely normal to us with a sure probability of success and minimal risk.

As this diagram clearly illustrates, it can be rewarding and it is vital for our growth as a person. However, humans opt for the Path of Least Resistance, wishing to avert fear and pain. So we need to consciously push ourselves outside our comfort zone, making the hard choices and adopting a growth mindset.

The mindset for growth

This can be as simple as saying ‘hi’ to a stranger to even running 10km a day. When you are stepping outside this comfort zone of yours (well done, you), remember to take baby steps, celebrate the small wins and reflect to learn from your mistakes.

Daring to move up the gears of comfort is often a self-fulfilling success. As author Robin Sharma puts it, “as you move outside your comfort zone, what was once unknown and frightening becomes the new normal”.

This is such a rewarding aspect of making hard choices that pay off: you get to look back at just how much you’ve developed as a person and realise that the limits to your possibilities have just expanded. This profound satisfaction is something that we keep looking for, in a positive feedback loop of sorts, paving the way for further growth.

For example, when I had a second shift this morning, the experience of before made me perform way better and I duly had even more donations to take home (and wrap in the next week with friends).

A Year 13 I spoke to recently encouraged me to commit to something completely out of my comfort zone, and see just how much I grow as a person. Reporting on the Cross Country during the week in my job as Sports Reporter made me consider whether that could be my growth project. As we plan ahead for 2023, think of something you can engage in that will push you, in a good way. It may be risky but you never know where it could take you. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

Let me leave you with 2 inspirational quotes.

Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. Dale Carnegie

You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new. Brian Tracy

Podcast of the week 🎙️

Stuff You Should Know: Selects: How Polar Bears Work

As we battle icy temperatures in the UK winter, I got to learn about how these grizzly mammals upstairs face off the even more extreme climate

Article of the week 📰

Can the world feed 8bn people sustainably?

ICYMI (In case you missed it), the world’s headcount hit 8 billion last month, which poses the question: where’s all the food we need going to come from?

Quote of the week 💬

…if you do want more after the overload in this week’s Ray of Sunlight

Don't worry about failure. You only have to be right once. 🤯 - Drew Houston

What are you going to do to get out of your comfort zone this week?

Adi

1. I must admit however, some of the excuses people gave me were hilarious: “I’m Portuguese” is the one that sticks out to me.