It’s Sunday and it’s the day that I keep free on purpose. I keep it free so I can recover from the week, engage in some self-loving, spend some time with bae and write. Recently, I have been doing all except the latter. As a matter of fact, before I started writing this article I walked up and down the apartment multiple times, cleaned up all my inboxes and lost myself in Mario Kart too.

You can tell already, I was procrastinating to the max. Tell you the truth, procrastination is one of my toxic traits. I happen to be very aware of my self-sabotage and I am working really hard on battling this. But in order to battle this, I had to figure out where it was coming from and in my case procrastination is caused by comfort, which is caused by fear.

That’s right, fear made feel comfortable with where I am and is what’s stopping me from being great. And if you’re reading this, chances are you can relate to this. You’ve probably gotten to a point in your life where things are pretty much okay. You might not be able to go on endless vacations, but hey at least you can go on vacay once a year. That’s not too bad. You might not be having the job of your dreams, but it pays the bills and every now and then you can treat yourself. Perhaps you’re not feeling entirely fulfilled…But hey, things could be worse.

All by all, things are not too bad.

But they’re not great either.

And perhaps just like me there used to be a time where you wanted to be great. Where your current job was just a step of a bigger plan to fulfill your true purpose. Where you had goals that were bigger than you.

But they were put on hold…

I recently caught myself. This year I started on a roll. I had my goals all planned out, until my arm-injury. I was then forced to find peace with my current situation. But now I’m finding too much peace. To the point that I got comfortable with where I am. And now here I am living a mediocre life.

Recognize this? If so, don’t get mad at yourself. It’s okay. Admitting this is the first step.

The next step is realizing that everything that we truly want is outside of our comfort zone. That promotion you want? Outside of your comfort zone. That first lesson of pole-dancing? Take a turn left and you’ll see it, right outside of your comfort zone. That new study…You already guessed it. Outside of thine comfort zone.

Is your heart already beating faster? Are your hands getting clammy? Or is your body showing any other sign of fear/anxiety?

Good! Now, instead of being intimidated by fear/anxiety back into our comfy bubbly, we have to find a way to get through it.

Gather information

One of the main reasons we stay in our comfort zone, is because we fear the unknown. Which is why gathering info on the one thing you want to do, might make the step smaller and therefore less scarier.

Switch it up a little

Fact is, we humans are habitual creatures. Breaking habits will make us very uncomfortable. So, how about we switch things up a little? Take a different route to work. Instead of having regular black coffee, try a latte. Small changes are the babysteps towards becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Be your own cheerleader

You know when a friend tells you there’s something they wanna do, but they’re still scared to do it, and you give 50 reasons why they don’t have to be afraid and should just go for it? Uhuh. You should do that for yourself as well. Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself why you should go for it. Even if you don’t believe the things you say (yet). Tell them to yourself, anyway. By talking to yourself in the mirror every day, you’ll reprogram your brain to the point that it will believe that you should and could go for it.

Just fucking do it

Thinking will not overcome fear,
but action will

W. Clement stone

We can do research and talk to ourselves in the mirror all we want, but the best way to beat fear is by actually doing it.