Many of the things that you need to do in order to become

successful can be quiet a stretch on your comfort zone. They

may make you nervous. You may have self doubts. You may be

down right scared by them. So what about the people who do

become successful? Don't they have these negative feelings?

The answer is that they have a secret way of breaking

through these obstacles and I'm going to share that secret

with you right now.

The truth is that the people who achieve great success in

life are human just like you and me. Most of them experience

all the nervousness, fears and self doubt that you and I

feel whenever we have to stretch our comfort zone. The

difference between those who overcome this obstacle and

those who fall by the wayside is that the successful people

feel the fear and do it anyway.

I remember the first time I had to speak at a business

seminar. I had never spoken in public before and I was

terrified. I didn't have butterflies in the stomach I had

eagles flying around in there. My whole body was shaking.

But I had made a decision that developing the skill of

seminar speaking would greatly enhance my business prospects

and so I keep my mind firmly focused on my desired outcome

and I stood in front of the audience and delivered my

speech.

Each time I spoke at a seminar the nerves were a little

reduced until eventually those nerves changed into

excitement and enjoyment. Now I love seminar speaking and it

has been my major activity over the last ten years.

Do you see what happened? There are three elements that

combine to allow you to overcome comfort zone stretching

obstacles.

The first of these elements is to accept that you are human

and as such it is natural to experience feelings of tension

and stress when you are stretching yourself into new

territory.

These feelings are the filter system that sort the winners

from the also rans. Look forward to them because if you are

experiencing them then it is evidence that you are

stretching your comfort zone and attempting to grow into a

more fully developed person. These feelings aren't your

enemy they are proof that you are alive and growing. If you

never experience these feelings then you are never

challenging yourself, which means that you will never become

all you can be.

The second element is to keep so strongly focused on your

desired result that you find the courage to push through

your fears and self doubt.

The secret to moving through to the next stage of personal

growth is having a strong desire for an out come that will

pull you through. Imagine that you have a steel cable

connecting you to your goal and that goal is winding the

cable in, drawing you closer and closer to your desired

outcome. You may swing this way or that on the cable but

inch by inch that powerful goal is drawing you to it. If

your goal is powerful enough then it will give you all the

strength you need to feel the fear and do it anyway.

The third element in successfully stretching your comfort

zone is to reinterpret the feelings you are experiencing so

that they become feelings of excitement and aliveness.

The difference between a tickle and an irritation is not the

signal the nerves send but rather it is the interpretation

the brain puts on those signals. So it is with fear. You can

learn to interpret these feelings as feelings of excitement

and exhilaration. If you feel the fear and do it anyway you

will discover that the very things that once produced fear

in you now become the things that give you the greatest

pleasures.

So remember the next time you have to stretch your comfort

zone that there is a three step solution that will help you

not only overcome the obstacle, but even more importantly,

will help you become a greater person. It is these continual

stretches of comfort zone, and the stronger character that

they build, which is the greatest reward in any successful

journey in this amazing life we have.