Take A Risk, Move Out Of Your Comfort Zone

     What sets the exceptional professional apart from the average? Regardless of what the profession, from sales to psychiatry, the exceptional professionals share certain characteristics. Here's one: The propensity to take risks.

     Now, don't get the wrong idea. We're not talking about skydiving, nor are we talking about sinking your life savings in the new start up.

     We're talking about taking risks that force you to move out of your comfort zones on the job -- risks that will stimulate you to stretch yourself, to become more competent, to gain new skills, to expand your abilities and, maybe, in so doing, help you become more effective and more efficient.

     Talk to someone in your profession who has become exceptionally successful. Ask him/her about the risks they have taken in their professional lives. You'll find that almost every successful professional has stretched himself/herself beyond comfort zones a number of different times. It's one of the characteristics of the highly successful professional.

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"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

Andre Gide, French writer, humanist and moralist, 1947 Nobel Prize for literature, 1869-1951

     If you can build an inclination to take these kinds of risks into your mindset, you'll grow faster and further than if you remain safely inside of your comfort zones.

Everyday Risks

     As a salesperson, when you call on a different type of customer than that with which you have become comfortable, you take a risk. For example, when you call on the CEO instead of the marketing manager or production supervisor, you've stepped out of your comfort zone and taken a risk.

     When you choose a new way to make a presentation, or a new way to contact your clients you are taking a risk. When you chose to question and then change some long-entrenched habit, you are taking a risk. When you expand your efforts in any direction that calls for you to stretch and attempt something new, you are taking a risk.

Increase Self-Assurance

     Some of those risks will turn out well, others will become failures. Regardless, the simple act of trying something different and new will help you. You'll gain confidence in your abilities and you'll learn from both your successes as well as your failures. Your life will expand, you'll grow wiser and you'll become more successful.

     That is the sure payoff for every risk thoughtfully taken.

     Source: Dave Kahle is a world-class speaker who has presented in 41 states and six countries. He has published more than 1,000 articles, and six books in 10 languages, as well as numerous multi-media training programs.