If you are not completely 100 percent satisfied with the way your life is going or if you feel  like you should be getting more out of life but cannot figure out what exactly is holding you back, it could be that you are not stepping out of your comfort zone.

Many times in life, it is our thoughts that hold us back more than any situation or stroke of bad luck.

Conversely, our thoughts also have the power to take our lives o the greatest heights we can imagine. 

I’m sure you’ve heard what I just said a million times so let me get straight to the ppoint and explain exactly how this works. 

The majority of our thoughts come from past experiences and relationships. Each experience and relationship brings with it a result that is either positive or negative. We then associate that result with the event or relationship. 

If result that occurred was a negative one, we tend to avoid events and relationships which we view as similar.

This certainly is not ground-breaking news. We’ve all either personally experienced or heard of someone who’s past negative experiences are having a negative effect on their current life. 

But have you ever experienced a situation where your success or a positive experience is negatively affecting you today? 

This is a situation that occurs every day in millions of people but they just don’t realize what’s happening. 

“But how could a positive event affect me negatively?” you may be asking. Here’s the answer; it’s preventing you from moving out of your comfort zone. 

While your comfort zone may be comfortable, it’s also not challenging you or enabling you to reach new levels in life. 

Here’s an example. Let’s say you start out in a company in a management position and you have some great people working for you. In fact, your branch outperforms many of the others in the company. Upper level management views you as an asset to the organization and wants to offer you a promotion which consists of managing a bigger branch with more responsibility.

As much as you want to move up in the company, deep down inside you keep referencing the success you’ve at the current branch and feel that it would be impossible to duplicate or live up to in another one. 

You then begin to feel like your reputation for being an effective manager would be ruined if you left the throne where you are currently regarded as a king and failed. 

And so you do nothing. You remain in the same position which is below your skill level and nothing changes. 

Had you moved out of your comfort level and taken the chance, things may have been much better. Sure there’s the risk that you could have failed but that’s part of life. 

While there’s no such thing as a guarantee, chances are that the skills which made you such an effective manager at your first branch combined with your experience would have made just as effective somewhere else.

Isn’t it strange how our successes can sometimes hold us back? But the fact of the mater is that this happens to people every single day.

My suggestion is start getting used to stepping out of your comfort zone. That way, when an opportunity arises, you’ll be able to clearly asses whether it will beneficial for you rather than just talking yourself out of it for the sake of being comfortable.