Hi everyone! I'm here talking with Amy Newmark, the editor-in-chief and
publisher of Chicken Soup for the Soul and she's also the author of their
latest book, which is about stepping outside of your comfort zone.
Now that's something that's probably pretty scary for most people, but why
should we make ourselves do it?
Well, I had noticed we were getting more and more stories
from people who were writing for different book topics, but
were incidentally telling us about times they stepped outside their comfort
zones and how it made them feel so excited about their lives and I thought
about the fact that by accident a lot of us start to fall into a rut. We don't
even do something like going and shopping at a different grocery store.
We go to the one where we know where everything is which is just silly!
Right, so what kinds of things do people do?
Does it have to be something extravagant?
No, it really doesn't and we see people feeling empowered and proud of
themselves for doing something like going to a new movie theater where they
don't know where the parking is or could be something huge like moving across the
country and starting a new career, but whatever it is they feel so great when
they try something new and we had a great story about it from this woman
named Erica Kahler. She felt she was in a rut and so one
year she decided she was just going to make a policy for an entire summer of
saying yes. She called it her "Summer of Yes" so no matter what she was asked she
said yes and so she competed in a 5k, she went to an outdoor concert, she went to a
science-fiction convention. She did all these things that she would have said no
to in the past. When that summer was over, that "Summer of Yes," she decided to keep
doing it and she ended up finishing college, she ended up switching jobs, she
ended up getting published as an author. She just kept going. It was an amazing
thing how just making a policy of saying "yes" had such a big impact on her life.
And do you think this is something that can be applied to people of all ages?
Oh, definitely! I've seen this across the board because even people in their
20s can start getting in a rut and I'm sure that you have fought the tendency
yourself and you've tried something new and different.
Yeah! I mean, I think maybe when it comes to traveling I'm used to planning things out every so
often but I recently took a trip with my mom and we kind of just decided to wing
it. We went up there and you end up learning so much more about the place
that you're in.
I think that's a great idea. I love going someplace and just
having a reservation for the first few days and then not having a reservation
for the second half of the vacation. And then you see where you end up.
Absolutely!
It's really, really fun. I actually implemented this policy of
trying new things about ten years ago and I've been consciously trying to do
new things ever since and it's meant that I've gone rock climbing in a gym
where I couldn't move my arms for a week. After I went on every scary roller
coaster at Universal Studios. I just forced myself to go on everything and
then I did something that was super scary that I really don't want to do
again, but I'm still so proud that I did it and that was that I went paragliding
and what was interesting about it was that, here I am, a person who works with
words — I'm an editor — and it never occurred to me that paragliding meant
"parachute" because I would never jump out of an airplane with a piece of fabric
and all those strings coming out of it and we get to the top of the cliff and
the guy's putting the harness on me and I look behind me on the ground and there
is a piece of fabric lying on the ground with strings coming out of it and I'm
thinking, "Oh my gosh! Paragliding... parachute." And then he says the scariest
thing I've ever heard: "You have to run off the cliff. So you have to run off the
cliff and have faith that it will fill with air but if you don't keep running
it will not fill with air, so it was really scary but I did it.
Obviously it worked out just fine and it has made me feel like if I can do that, I
can do anything and that's what everybody reports about when they try
these new things — they realize, "Well, I'm capable of that, then I can do this, and
this, and this."
Right. Wow! After seeing that you must have some advice on how people can
step out of their comfort zone.
First, you have to look at yourself and say, "Am I in a rut? Have I accidentally stopped
doing new things, going new places, trying new experiences?"
And if you realize, "Yeah I'm in a rut." Well then do something
small to start with. Maybe just try some food that you thought you didn't like.
Try it again, you might like it and then do something a little bigger and maybe
get some article of clothing — some kind of clothing you never wore before. Maybe
put an app on your phone that you never tried before— learn a new technology and
then you'll find that you'll be excited. You'll be proud of yourself and then
you'll keep going and finally, I would say remember my favorite quote. It's by
John Shedd and it's really the thing that motivated this entire book — and the
quote is this: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
Wow, I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us today.
Oh, well thank you for letting me talk about my new favorite topic.