Why Are We So Afraid Of What Is New?

We are continuing our little series with some exercises on our comfort zone. Our every day life is filled with habits and automated reactions. We are often not present and miss opportunities for taking a leap, even just a small one. 
Evaluating where we stand, what we are comfortable with as well as what we would like to do but still are afraid of can be helpful to making changes. 

We have put together two small exercises to exploring your comfort zone for making a change. 
We hope that this will help you to look ahead making plans, might just be small ones, in these challenging times. 

We are sending you hope and love

Why are we so afraid of everything that is new?

Breaking habits
We often leave things as they are even though it can be refreshing to try something new and unknown. Why is this so difficult?
And how do you do that: changing your habits?

Exercise
By drawing a model of your comfort zone you realize, which things are easy for you and give  you energy and what can be challenging, as well as what you are not ready to do yet.

When you fill out this little comfort zone model you put all the things that are easy for you and of course the ones you like doing in the middle circle. This is your comfort zone. In the larger circle around it you put situations that you can manage but are sometimes difficult. You are doing these things but they can give you an uneasy feeling.
In the outer ring you put activities that you are not yet ready to do, you are kind of afraid of doing these things. Keep in mind that all of these circles are in constant movement. As soon as you try something new the circles in the middle will expand. Your comfort zone can also shrink if you stop pushing your boundaries.
It is a fun thing to do. Fill out your comfort zone right now and have a look again in a few weeks. You will understand much better whether you progressed or not.

Below is a small model from us. You can use the empty one we are sending you or you can simply draw one in your notebook. 

Notes on your comfort zone

Write down what you want to do differently in the future – or what you would have handled differently looking back.

Which small new things do you want to integrate in your everyday life? (think about: take a different way to work, taking a walk around the block in your area, to sit down on a different spot at the dinner table, use the other hand for brushing your teeth)
On which day next week will you try out these changes?
Is there a whole area in your life where you want to do things differently? Which one is it?
When and how could you implement this?
Looking back at the last five years are there things you would like to change?
Are there things that you tried changing already but somehow it didn’t work?
Do you think you could change these old tasks today?
If money wouldn’t matter: what would you change?
What things would you like to learn in the coming years?
What do you want to do differently from tomorrow onward?