I have written about the importance of going outside of your comfort zone as an entrepreneur as long as this blog has been around. I could wax poetic about how or why we need to get uncomfortable for an entire post, but this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. just sums it up so much better than I would:

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

But once you’re already outside of your comfort zone, what does it feel like? How do you know you’re stretching yourself?

I’ll tell you from first hand experience - a lot of the time it feels like $hit. Since I have spent a good amount of time outside of my own comfort zone, let me help you to recognize when you’re outside of yours, just so you know why you feel like crap.

1. You second guess your decisions.
2. Your critics, once easily ignored, suddenly rent way more head space than they deserve.
3. Your old plan of action may now seem overly simplistic.
4. Formerly non-existent “What If’s” suddenly spring to mind. A lot.
5. Before you got outside of your comfort zone, all you could think about was getting your goal, but once outside of it, all you can think about is what will happen if you don’t reach your goal.
6. You become a textbook example of the infamous “Impostor Syndrome“.
7. Words start rearranging themselves in your head - for example, the phrase “I can do this!” somehow becomes “Can I do this?”
8. You sometimes wonder WTF to do next.
9. “Positive Thinking” suddenly doesn’t quite seem so, well, “realistic” as it used to
10. Digg Trolls magically appear to be more intelligent than they really are.

So what do you do now?

Here’s the most important thing to keep in mind (no matter what else you wish you weren’t keeping in mind):

If you were strong enough to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, you have to trust yourself to get through to the other side.

So here’s ten more tips to get you through what we could call “growing pains”:

1. Talk about your fears or concerns with someone out loud - the doubting voices in your head sound a lot more stupid when they come out of your mouth.
2. In the big picture, even if you really screw up, you’ll be grateful for it at some point.
3. Being outside of your comfort zone by nature doesn’t feel good, so feeling scared or crappy doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong.
4. NOW would be a really good time to recap your accomplishments to yourself. Yeah, as in, right now.
5. No matter how hard it is to think positive, you really gotta do it anyway, even if it doesn’t feel very encouraging.
6. If you really get off track, you’ll know. Really.
7. There’s a reason the saying “Fake it ‘Till You Make it” is still in use after all these years.
8. If you’ve gotten this far, you already know that listening to your fears is a dumb move. So don’t start now.
9. Nobody ever did anything great without taking a risk.
10. And of course, don’t forget that a strong alcoholic drink shared with your BFF will always knock some sense into your head.

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