Find Success Outside Your Comfort Zone

How comfortable are you with being uncomfortable?

I’m a big proponent of students exploring opportunities that might make them a little nervous at first. Now, I’m not talking about booking a trip to a remote part of the world and living in a tent in the jungle for two months—though that could be fun too. Really what I mean is that as the summer presents you with new opportunities for work experience, self-driven projects, and more, stepping just a little bit past your comfort zone can be the thing that ends up influencing what you write on college applications, what you study, or even what you end up doing with your career.

When I was in high school, my JV basketball coach, Laurent, just happened to be one of my greatest mentors. He got me into the gym, where I was initially uncomfortable as the “slimmest” kid in our grade; he introduced me to ancient philosophy, at a time when I was hesitant to explore some of life’s biggest questions; and he knew that I was a relatively shy kid that actually had a lot to say—but just mumbled when saying it.

I was uncomfortable speaking in front of people. It’s not too uncommon—I’m sure people reading this might feel some jitters when addressing a crowd, or just a larger group of people (let alone strangers). Class presentations, school assemblies, choir recitals, musical performances… I seldom looked forward to having the spotlight cast on me. Although I may have physically stood out by the time I was 6’6” in high school, I felt most comfortable either being an introvert on my own or socializing with a small group of friends.

And then an opportunity presented itself: Laurent was offered a 2-hour slot on a local Wednesday night radio station as a sound engineer, and he needed someone to man the microphone and essentially host the radio show. He “convinced” me to do it, and over the course of two months in 2005 people could tune in to 99.8FM to hear me stumble through rants on the state of music, introduce new artists, and ultimately be the first English-speaking talk/music show host on French-Belgian radio.

Week 1 was incredibly uncomfortable, accentuated by how fast I spoke and how poorly I articulated myself. I went home and painstakingly listened to the taping, just hoping to get a little better. Week 2 was already a considerable improvement, and once I really understood how unique the opportunity was, I spent the remaining weeks of this “internship” branching out in as many ways I could. We posted flyers for the show around our town and proactively reached out to local restaurants and movie theaters, and they offered us gift cards to distribute to people (primarily students) who called in. It was my introduction to business development, marketing, and sponsorship—and it was all uncomfortable at first. I just eventually got comfortable with being uncomfortable, and then the possibilities were endless.

If you’re about to start your first internship or feel like you’ve missed out by not saying “yes” to scary opportunities, this is your sign to embrace being uncomfortable the next time the opportunity presents itself. The worst that can happen is you realize that particular thing just isn’t for you. The best that can happen, however, is that you end up being passionate about something new that just might become your “thing”.