You can’t change careers from your comfort zone. But leaving it can be tough. Even if you’re uncomfortable in your current job, it’s still a safety zone. It may be varying degrees of dreadful, but you know the rules and the relationships and how to operate the photocopier.

From its outset, changing careers involves venturing beyond familiar places, people, and perspectives. As a client once remarked, “you have to do uncomfortable things to get where you want to go.”

Learning and growing outside your comfort zone makes for scary and exhilarating times. You can tip the balance in favour of exciting over frightening by nudging yourself gently towards the edge.

Here are three ways you can build your tolerance for longer forays into the unknown.

Learn to love ‘the burn’

Most of us know the painful, slightly panicky sensation of pushing our physical limits. Think adding reps to a weight lifting workout or distance to your regular run or bike ride. As this thought-provoking article suggests, any boundary-pushing activity exposes us to ‘the burn.'

What if we stopped seeing the burn as ‘a punishing side effect’ of extending our physical or social, or emotional selves? What if we welcomed it as evidence of courage and tenacity and (best of all) progress towards mastering something new or advanced.

Reframing ‘the burn’ as intense and exhilarating rather than threatening and dangerous means you’re more likely to stick with that challenging new thing. Physically, you’ll do those extra reps or kilometres and grow your strength and endurance. As a career changer, you’ll set up an intentional conversation aka ‘a coffee chat’ with someone working in an intriguing area or reach out to someone you admire for their career change advice.

I felt the burn when I accepted an invitation to be interviewed on the breakfast TV show Sunrise. Appearing on morning television was one of the most nerve-wracking, boundary-busting things I'd done in a long time. The reward? Once I’d taken what felt like a giant step into the spotlight, smaller moves like running an online workshop looked a lot less scary. did.

Stop running from rejection

Changing your response to rejection can help you stay engaged in challenging situations. It’s perfectly natural to want to run from hurt and humiliation.

However, whenever you flee, you miss an opportunity to learn some assumption-busting truths. In this funny, insightful TED talk, Jia ‘Rejection Guy’ Jiang advocates staying engaged long enough to ask ’why’ you got rejected. Maybe the reasons have lots or little or nothing to do with you and what you’re offering. You might come away with a referral to a potentially more fruitful contact.

Inoculating yourself against rejection takes energy and focus. Like lots of fears, this one is often rooted in childhood experiences. What Jia Jiang learned during his ‘100 days of rejection’ project freed his inner six-year-old from decades of fear that stemmed from a painful classroom incident.

Start small

Most comfort zone exit strategies call for courage and lateral thinking. Not running from rejection and sticking with the burn can feel counterintuitive and unnerving.

If you tackle new things in smallish chunks at a level just beyond your current capability, two things happen. Firstly, you’re less likely to be overwhelmed and discouraged. Secondly, you’re more likely to ‘find your flow’ and immerse yourself in mastering new stuff. Think of it as strengthening your bold muscle. Each time you flex, the burn eases a bit.

I recommend trying something new every week. You’ll uncover priceless career change clues about where your abilities and interests lie in a world choc-full of possibilities.

Need a nudge out of your comfort zone? I can help.

By Jo Green, Career Change Coach

I know that when you find what you love, heart and soul, your life changes. I work every day with people who are reshaping their current careers, starting new enterprises or searching for a new direction. Basically I help people who don’t like their job to figure out what to do instead!

As a Careershifters and Firework Advanced Certified Coach and experienced career changer myself, I can help you figure out what fulfilling work looks like for you.

Drop me a note to organise a free 20 minute consultation to chat about your career change and how coaching could help.