- At the age of 12,
I refuse to talk to strangers.
At the age of 13, I would physically shake
when I had to speak in front of the class.
At the age of 14, when I went to all girls school,
I literally could not look a boy in the eyes.
At the age of 16, I was too scared to take the train alone.
At the age of 17, I'd still never had a love life
and that scared me.
At the age of 18, I was too scared to make phone calls.
Just kidding, I'm still working on that one (laughs).
And yet somehow here I am at age 21.
And in the last few years
I have somehow traveled around Europe.
I've bungee jumped, I've skydived,
I lived alone in France to learn French,
I studied in Korea, I published a book,
I've had businessy conversations, I changed my style.
And most proudly, I can take the tube alone in London.
Today, we're going to dig into comfort zones.
What they are, the science behind comfort zones,
how I expanded mine and why you should too.
(soft music)
Hey there, guys and welcome back to UnJaded Jade.
Welcome to a series I have been planning for so long.
This is the summer of self, summer of self.
This name was voted on by the lovely people on Instagram.
And I think it perfectly captures what this series is about.
For me, summer is the time that I reset,
I remind myself what's important,
I refocus before going back to university.
Honestly, this series is for both of us,
we're gonna cover those different topics
about expanding into the best version of ourselves
and using this summer to set that up.
I also think there's a huge stigma
around focusing on yourself as being self-centered,
narcissistic, big headed.
When in reality, people who say that
are probably just insecure
about you growing into your confidence.
And I think focusing on yourself,
it is the biggest act of self-love and power.
So we're gonna step into our power this summer.
A few rules for the series, you need a cute drink.
I'm very out of my comfort zone right now
because it is 32 degrees and I decided to go for hot tea.
It's good.
And every episode will end
with a journal prompt deep questions.
This is for both you and me to reflect on.
And if you take the time to do this,
I think you'll get the most out of this series.
So what is our comfort zone?
We often see those words in motivational quotes
plastered on a beautiful sunset.
When in reality,
a comfort zone is actually a scientifically proven thing
in the field of psychology.
It's basically activities and behaviors,
which form a consistent routine, that is it.
This routine or this pattern is something we like
because it minimizes stress.
When you get used to the things
that become part of our routine.
We love minimizing stress, who doesn't?
It makes us feel secure, it makes us feel chilled,
you're happy, you're low anxiety, you know what to expect.
Your comfort zone is everything
from the person you're in a relationship with
and the dynamic that you have,
the kind of clothes that you wear every day,
your daily routine, the things that you eat,
the activities that you like doing
and where you go to do them
and the time that you do them at,
it's people you interact with,
how you interact with them.
All of that forms part of your comfort zone
and what you feel comfortable doing.
And it can grow.
In 1908, two psychologists,
Robert Yerkes and John Dodson
showed that a relative level of comfort
is good for stabilizing your performance,
it's good for staying the same.
Inside your comfort zone, you plateau,
which is fun and nice, but you just don't get growth.
They found that in order to maximize performance,
in order for someone to grow,
you have to have something called optimal anxiety.
The idea is you expose yourself to just enough stress
that you grow, you change, you learn.
It's not too much, you're not overwhelmed,
but you are uncomfortable, but in a good productive way.
(soft music)
Here we have my headband.
It's just chilling in its un-stretched comfort zone.
It can expand, but it's not, it's just staying like this.
But if I want it to give me its best performance,
in order to tie back my insane mane,
it has to be stretched to what it's capable of,
its optimal anxiety.
Definitely has to stretch.
But if I stretch it too far,
it'll snap because my curls are just too stressful for it,
which happens a lot.
This is the same for you and comfort zones,
a little bit stretching, amazing,
too much stretching, you snap.
That is the mindset around how you should
expand your comfort zone.
Lots of baby steps to slowly stretch
and just live into your potential
and see what you're capable of, which sounds easy,
but it's not at all.
I am someone who overthinks everything, every little detail.
Like I replay conversations in my head.
Sometimes I'm thinking about what I'm gonna say
before I say it, like right now.
I'm thinking about what I'm gonna say to the cashier
in the shop, I'm thinking about the parking,
the car park I'm gonna go to before I've even set off.
So I just won't set off
because I'm worried I won't find a car park space.
So because of his overthinking nature,
my comfort zone used to be very small, but it got better.
And in this video,
I'm gonna talk about four things in my journey
to increase my comfort zone.
And I'm gonna talk about one thing
I'm actively working on right now.
The first is public speaking.
I was very well known among my friends for shaking.
Like my hands would shake and my legs would shake
when I was in front of the class.
When I was talking in front of anyone,
especially if I was holding a piece of paper
and was reading it, I would just do this.
And I hated it, I just hated that I did that.
I hated that it had so much power over me, this fear.
So I knew I needed to work on it,
even if I really didn't want to,
rather than waiting to speak in front of a thousand people,
which honestly would be like my elastic band snapping.
I did two things, which I did consistently.
I joined a drama club.
So I started getting practice speaking in front of people,
but under different roles.
And secondly, I signed up for almost every school assembly
that I could, if it was a languages day
and they needed students to say one line in assembly,
I would do it.
I would stand on stage in front of a hundred students
and I would shake predictably.
I'd be reading one sentence shaking, but I did it.
And every time I did it, it got slightly easier.
Not really, but like a little, little bit.
And I was proud because over time
my hands shook a little bit less.
I was able to not just look at my piece of paper,
but occasionally look at all the faces staring at me.
My comfort zone didn't expand by magic.
It was like a muscle that I just slowly trained
and eventually it got a little bit better.
I'm not a master public speaker now, but I'm a lot better.
That constant mini exposure to fear.
Second one, this is embarrassing,
social conversations with boys.
I went to an all girls school at secondary school
and I don't know if anyone relates to that,
but I just didn't really have friends who were guys
when I was like 14, 15.
So I just became a bit like socially isolated,
thought the boys of that age,
the exact same age of me were somehow different.
I felt like I didn't understand their humor.
They felt like a foreign species.
But I hated that I was so rubbish at it.
So I was like, right, Jade, we need more friends.
This was one of the reasons that I started volunteering
at disability charity and at my local Staples,
suddenly there were boys my age and the first few times
I went was scary and embarrassing
and I avoided social interaction and just did the job.
But slowly I got better at it, as we all do,
the fair dissipated, I realized it was okay,
the boys are, you know, they're okay,
they're human too and now, now I'm fine.
Number three, doing things alone.
I wasn't raised in a city.
And I felt that people who are have a huge advantage
on independence in general,
like everything is so much more accessible, but here no.
And my mum is the cutest human ever
and would just help me a lot.
So I just, I didn't get super independent doing things,
but I craved this idea of independence.
So I slowly expanded my comfort zone, very small steps.
Firstly, I took the bus with friends to school,
sounds silly, but you know,
me walking myself to the bus stop every morning,
that was a tiny slice of doing something alone.
I got a train to a nearby town just to meet a friend
and I survived, I was okay.
I got a bike and that was a little bit of independence
because suddenly I could cycle round the fields
or by the river on my own.
And it really helped me when I got a dog
'cause it reduced my fear of walking alone.
And then I got work experience in London
and all of a sudden, I had to get the train
every single Saturday into London alone.
And that was a huge thing for me
because it was the first time ever
that I had to navigate the tube on my own.
The first time I went to the wrong platform, I got lost,
I took a train in the wrong direction
and I ended up getting to my work experience late,
which is honestly the most tragic start to me
trying to move up in the wild and adult,
but I did it and I got better at it.
And through all these tiny, consistent steps,
each one of which was really scary at the time.
I'm now at a point where I went solo traveling
or during university, you know,
like I can get on a plane
and fly I feel like almost anywhere
and I will just work it out.
If I get lost somewhere, I know I'll be okay in the end
because I trust myself, but I would not be at this point
if wasn't for slowly building that up.
Number four, new cultures, new foods,
and trying new things and different ways of life.
It is out of our comfort zones
to change our routines in any way.
Again, with all the foods that I once didn't like,
I somehow have taught myself to like them.
And it's true, you can make yourself like
almost any food slowly over time.
And I feel the same way about different lifestyles
or learning about other cultures
because at the end of the day, everything, everyone,
it's just a bit, it's different.
Nothing's necessarily better or worse than anything.
When you go to a new place and you feel overwhelmed,
it's not because that place is bad.
It's just because it's different.
For example,
if you were someone who could never imagine living abroad,
because that's terrifying to you,
take tiny baby steps towards thinking
about living in that place.
So for example, say you wanted to move to Berlin,
which I highly recommend, it is a wonderful city.
A small step going out of your current comfort zone
is to start learning German.
You're getting your brain in that mindset of,
okay, what if I was in Berlin, try new foods,
practice navigating cities here
that you're more comfortable with,
try practicing making friends here.
And if you've got that skill of navigating a city,
that skill of making new friends,
that skill of learning a new language,
then when you do eventually move somewhere new,
because you've developed those skills
in a more comfortable way,
your comfort zone has already expanded
and now you're just challenging a little bit more again,
by being in this new place.
That is something that has really helped me
because I have lived, I'm very lucky to say
I've lived in quite a few countries in the last year,
since I've left school, places which are very different,
culturally, food-wise, lifestyle-wise,
everything to what I'm used to.
And it's allowed me to really embrace those cultures.
And right now, what am I doing?
That is so out of my comfort zone is I am driving more.
I hate driving, I passed my test three years ago,
I haven't driven since.
Even though I passed doesn't mean I'm good.
Surprisingly, I didn't get a single minor or major
on my test if I feel like that's just
because I'm like a fake it til you make it person.
If it's a test, I'll try my best,
but I'm just not confident.
The idea of parking terrifies me,
the idea of being on road terrifies me,
the idea of coming to a roundabout,
being on a motorway, blah, blah, blah, all scares me,
but I don't like that it has so much power over me.
So this summer,
one of my goals has been to get better at driving.
And I've forced my parents to just come out with me
at least a few times a week.
And recently I drove myself all the way to Brighton,
which is the longest trip I've done in so long
and it was terrifying,
but it gave me a lot of confidence in the end.
My driving comfort zone has expanded for sure
and it's only getting better.
So overall, why should you try and expand your comfort zone?
Why not sit where you're comfortable?
Firstly, it will be a lot easier to deal with new situations
to adapt to them, to challenge yourself and be okay.
Secondly, I think it makes you trust yourself more
because you know that you are capable of it.
Even if it's challenging, you think to yourself,
well, I've done this before,
when that thing was really tough
and it worked out okay in the end.
And thirdly, because you can reach
your full potential as a human,
growth mindset, no one is born naturally good at everything.
Traveling everywhere, at driving, of doing this, that.
You learn those things,
you get better at them through trying them.
So yeah,
I dare you to go out of your comfort zone a little bit.
I do also wanna say that going back into your comfort zone
is really important.
If you are consistently challenging yourself,
you have to come back to process these experiences.
I found that at university, it's so tough, so much newness,
so much going out of my comfort zone that it's like,
I feel like I'm being challenged every day.
And if I don't have this summer period of coming back
to somewhere where I feel really comfortable,
I would just burn out.
So today's summer of self journal prompts for you.
Ask yourself these questions, what scares you?
What about it scares you?
What is one thing you can do this week
to feel less scared about that thing?
If you don't work on this fear,
what were your life look like in five to 10 years?
And if you do slowly work on that fear,
how could it look in five to 10 years?
For example, are you giving a Ted talk?
Are you driving your friends around?
Are you solo traveling and having incredible experiences?
Do it for yourself.
Expand your comfort zone for yourself
and for your future self.
Thank you so much for watching.
Welcome to the summer of self.
I hope you liked this first episode, comment down below,
what do you wanna see in this series?
Videos are going live every Saturday at 12:00 PM.
And that's the tea, the positivity.
All my casual magic for today is most definitely the sun
and how it scatters little rainbows around my room.
So beautiful.
Oh and if you made it to this point in the video,
hi, I think we are besties.
Leave me a little sun emoji,
and I'm gonna give you some love, bye.
(soft music)