Comfort Zones and Learning Curves

                When you’re introduced to something new, you can welcome it, resist, turn away, manage some sort of response, worry over it; but you will respond in some manner.

                The nature of your response is affected by your comfort zone. That zone governs how you react to changes in your life. And after you first respond, you climb aboard a learning curve, in which you hope to improve your response with each additional attempt. 

                Example: My wife Jan and I joined a gym about a month ago. It has a delightful large area for all sorts of water activities for young and old, including a lazy river. This is where you often find the older folk early in the morning, before the sun rises.

There is a large window to the east where you may witness the sun rise, and arriving and departing flights from Metro Airport. The image of a lone plane against a slowly-emerging natural backdrop is something that gets to me each morning I visit. I want to show it to my grandson Noah, who is a big fan of airplanes.

                Jan and I have joined the folk in the lazy river – we have to leave the gym by 7:30 a.m. to get to work on time, but I think many of our new friends are retired – we’re still getting to know them. I was talking in the locker room the other day with a retired gentleman who was 82.

Ultimately, I’d like to begin swimming laps in the separate lap pool, but never having swum competitively and being out of shape, I would be leaving my comfort zone. So I’ve approached it slowly. I’ve watched others in the lap pool, and jumped in myself last week to swim a lap.

I swam poorly. My breathing as I swim is more a sideways gasp for air, and I begin to build an oxygen deficit. On my first lap, I had to stop swimming after completing two-thirds of it, but I thought: no big deal. I’ll simply stand on the bottom, head above water, catch my breath, and continue swimming.

I was wrong, and was briefly shocked. As I looked down for a place to put my feet and rest my body, I could see for the first time that the bottom of the pool was several feet below me. I collected myself, rose to the surface, and swam the rest of the lap. And, after a brief rest, I added a second lap.

Earlier this week, after my first experience, I left the lazy river, and walked over to the lap pool. I sat down with my towel over my shoulders, and watched a man swimming laps, very comfortably, it seemed.

As I watched I noticed his motion was slow, strong and consistent. He was in no rush.

And, as he swam, he lifted his mouth well above the water’s surface, using a swimming motion that overextended the twist in the torso as you reach for oxygen, permitting him more time to grab a good, relaxed breath, not the desperate gasp I had done.

And, as I went to the locker room, I thought, that’s what I’ll do next time. I had expanded my comfort zone, and had begun a learning curve. I’m interested to see where I go with it.

We face comfort zones and learning curves each day. Where are your comfort zones? What is outside your comfort zone?

Among those activities where you’ve expanded your comfort zone, where are you on the learning curve?