Confidence, Completion and the Comfort Zone. A Journey Without End.
By: Danu Stratton-Kent
Tags: Comfort Zone, Discomfort Zone, Confidence, Mbti, Self Esteem

Overcoming self-esteem issues and growing my confidence to be in the world has been a lifelong journey for me, and realistically I probably didn’t properly take the steering wheel until my thirties. Until then, I was rather like a daddy long-legs, bumping from one misadventure to another, allowing life to happen to me in a series of happy or miserable accidents.

Anxiety underpinned my every decision. Not always in those boiling-point meltdowns of hyperventilation and sobbing. Usually in a latent, undetected way. Anxiety had the steering wheel. “Avoid this situation, this experience, those people”. Everything intimidated me. Yes, I was an introvert whose energy is generated in the inner world, and a solo mountain goat who prefers wandering off alone to grass less trodden, but underneath all that I was actually just scared. I had and probably still have, an underlying sense of most people being better, cooler, more interesting than me.

I resisted putting myself in “dangerous” situations where my perceived inadequacies would be revealed. My inner chimp, my limbic brain, the reptilian brain or monkey mind, and within it the amygdala, overrode all logic to “protect” me from scary situations. I’m not talking paragliding or skydiving. Those situations could be just walking to the bar in a busy pub. Inside, my chattering chimp would implore me to stay still and seated or, if I was to override my fear and walk to the bar, do so with the self-consciousness of a catwalk model in 12-inch heels on a tightrope suspended above an audience on her first day at work. Each step filled with violent insurrection within: “Why are you doing this? Why are you taking us through this pool of crocodiles?” “We shall surely die”. This may make me sound overly misanthropic, but in the words of Lily Allen “I don’t like most people, but I’m scared not evil” (Family Man).

Alcohol, and lots of it, was the medicine of choice back in those fear-laden days. Only booze could compel me to join a group of people and feel in the least bit welcome. Often, even alcohol couldn’t break the sense that I was not in the right place. At the time, I was unaware that I was carrying with me a trauma brain, one which was always on high alert for signs and signifiers to alert me to danger. A mild scowl in my direction on the face of a mere acquaintance would convince me that I was intolerable scum.

Finishing my relationship with alcohol and related accoutrements a decade ago pivoted me into a new world. I embraced my career and personal development and came to understand myself far better, and eventually, with much resistance, to love myself enough to continue the work on my self worth. Without those efforts, I do believe my life in the last decade would have been a continuation of daddy-long-legsism. Instead, I grew, I developed. Oh god, maybe I even “found myself”!

In that decade, in my dayjob and voluntary work I have spent a great deal of time training leaders within the police, mentoring students and post grads in my Alma Mater (Exeter University) and particularly coaching and mentoring women (Springboard) and people with disabilities (Disability Rights UK, London) or mental-health challenges (Peer Support — Mind and Institute for Mental Health). I have been able to share with all of them my own journey to confidence growth, and the tools with which we can develop our confidence and ourselves as well-rounded human beings. Of these tools, I find three of particular merit. These are 1) Finding Your Values, 2) MBTI Personality Type Indicator and 3) The Comfort Zone model.

I will write more about one and two in due course, but the comfort zone is one which I find deeply resonant as I embark on a new stage in my life.

As Farrah Storr reminds us in The Discomfort Zone (see her great Tedx Talk here), the comfort zone ain’t all that comfortable. The comfort zone is basically the stuff we know how to do, and pretty well. These actions and habits are anxiety free, in that we complete them without self-doubt. This can be (but may not be for everyone) brushing our teeth, making the bed, hugging our spouse, feeding our children, following a well- understood process in our job etc. But within the comfort zone there is no growth. If we stay here, we can become stale, bored, possibly static.

Let’s imagine a person in Cornwall who has just passed their driving test after a substantial number of lessons. They weren’t too nervous of driving on the roads they were familiar with, but the idea of making a trip on a motorway filled them with pure dread. Total overwhelm. But they have an unwell mother in Scotland. They really need to visit. They make the trip initially by train, well within their comfort zone but onerous, it turns out. After all, the train journey entails several changes and takes a great many hours. It may be in their comfort zone but it is paradoxically a source of discomfort. They can do it, but at a cost to their progress and thus their wellbeing, and their self worth. They want to be with mum more quickly, but their comfort zone compels them to do it with difficulty and strain. Because of course, leaving the comfort zone is also onerous. But it can be done in a controlled manner, by entering the Stretch Zone.

Okay, how do we get them on that motorway? Maybe we can suggest they try driving to Scotland via some less zoomy dual carriageways first, to get the sense of larger roads. Next, maybe they can try practising using the motorway at a quieter hour, just before first light, and only driving to the next junction to begin with, perhaps with a friendly passenger for support. This is the stretch zone. They are taking calculated risks. It may release uncomfortable adrenalin, but they know they have a plan, that they are going to mitigate risks with strategies to manage the discomfort. When they try this, they experience something wonderfully nourishing for wellbeing and self-esteem: learning, and success. They have challenged themselves in a measured way (babysteps to brilliance) and have seen the results, thus motivating themselves to try again, maybe stretching the challenge and risk taking still further. Eventually, in this controlled manner, reaping the rewards of successful achievements in the stretch zone, this individual will easily manage a motorway drive from Cornwall to Scotland, and soon look back with wonder: how was I scared by that?

We know from the NHS Five Ways to Wellbeing CLANG model that the sweetspot of wellbeing can be found in:

C onnection (being around people, whether the checkout lady at the shop, or our community),

onnection (being around people, whether the checkout lady at the shop, or our community), L earning (new things, be it a language, how to mend your bike, or finding out something new like taking a public footpath in nearby countryside and finding out where it leads)

earning (new things, be it a language, how to mend your bike, or finding out something new like taking a public footpath in nearby countryside and finding out where it leads) Being A ctive (exercise, movement)

ctive (exercise, movement) N oticing (mindful attention to our environment) and

oticing (mindful attention to our environment) and Giving.

Our individual here will experience a wellbeing boost from their stretch-zone adventures since they will have learnt something new (driving on motorways) and perhaps more of the five ways to wellbeing such as Connection (with her mum, or the people helping her to practise driving on the motorway).

Of course, if we put this individual in a racing car and tell them to give Jensen Button a run for his money, our driver friend is going to go wham, straight into the Panic Zone! Therein lies trouble: they will freak out. Their performance will decrease (significantly, in this example) and they will be utterly overwhelmed and full of heart-exploding fear. So, we don’t go there. The Panic Zone is not our friend. If we land in the Panic Zone we risk undoing all our good work. The stress of being in the panic zone can be traumatic, or cause burn out, and from there we invariably retreat to the tiny world of the Comfort Zone for a while. Until we are ready to peek out again and start revisiting our Stretch Zone.

For people with anxiety or lacking in confidence, the comfort zone can be a very appealing place to spend our time. For me, the comfort zone used to manifest as my own four walls, the only place I felt safe. This was of course agoraphobia, hiding in my home unable even to go to the local shop and buy food. I used alcohol to plonk me in a pub amongst friends, and there my comfort zone was simply smiling and laughing and listening to other people’s anecdotes. God forbid I try and start to tell one of my own, that was sure to fail. But I could do smiling. That was a skill well within my comfort zone. A Good Girl trick. Sit there and look pretty. The following day, my friends may have been going off on adventures: surfing, camping, road trips. I could not go. What if they found out my secret: I was not worthy of love. I could not take the risk.

But I had a will within me to achieve things. I knew I had capacity for more than being frozen in petrification, scared to step into the world. I had achieved a First Class degree against huge odds, for god’s sake. I knew, I knew that I had something within me to give to the world. And slowly, tentatively, and with many setbacks, I took babysteps into the world. I called them Babysteps to Brilliance. Not all of us can take Tony Robbin’s steroidal Massive Action. It is okay to take small steps and learn in those spaces how to take the next, and the next.

One foot in front of the other, I took one risk after the other. In an HR recruitment admin role, I noticed people with fewer qualifications and less experience than me going for better roles and getting them. I was burdened with that belief that many women have that if we do not tick every box then we should just not even try, a syndrome closely related to the Imposter Syndrome which differs in that it rears its head when you are already in a role and have a secret and incorrect belief that you are not up to the job and may be found out at any moment. Often, in the previous scenario, we would tick many more boxes than other applicants but will not go in the ring and find out. Learning this, I stepped in the ring, and was successful. Before long, my bosses told me I was working in a role below my capacity and I was urged to begin another promotion process and was again successful. This continued four times in as many years until I became a women’s development training lead helping other women find their way through their own outer and inner obstacles.

Unfortunately, my own mental-health resilience remained fragile and my personal and career development could only continue its rise with the cheerleading of enlightened managers who believed in me more than I did myself. A perfect storm of knocks in my personal life and the metaphorical sticking-out legs of colleagues who were happy to trip me over and pretend to be looking the other way meant that my hard-won confidence was run back into the ground. The Imposter Syndrome that I had worked hard to overcome was sniffed out like rotting flesh by jealous colleagues and worked on like a juicy bone until I was too weakened to fight back. But I now had experience of winning back that confidence and I knew the comfort zone model was my friend. Returning to the sofa to recover for many months, I percolated. I needed to step out of my comfort zone before it suffocated me. And I needed to do this in a big way.

And so I emigrated. Alone.

And then, sometimes shaking on cliff tops, I began to walk the entire Algarve coast path of which I completed the south coast in July.

On starting this challenge, my body was unfit from depressive inertia and lockdowns, and my mind was still in recovery from two horrendous years at work. I undertook this personal challenge because I knew from previous experience that if I lived in the Stretch Zone I could not be defeated. In the stretch zone, we must rise to testing challenges and overcome them with our own gumption and resolve. It’s okay to let someone hold your hand sometimes, but they must not do the work for you. If this happens, you will not reap the great results of wellbeing and confidence restoration.

One thing I’ve learnt in this journey along the entire Algarve coast line is that growing your confidence back by living in the stretch zone is a job never fully completed. You do not reach Confidence Level A* and from there never descend back to the depths of Confidence Level F-. But you spend less time at the bottom each time. I knew this when I was almost defeated by my dayjob and had to climb back up, and I know this now with The Walk.

How do I know this? I had to take a couple of month’s break from the walk as I rounded the corner of the South West Algarve. This was for personal reasons, but also perhaps I put my toe in the Panic Zone and freaked out. I had walked from Vila Real de Santo Antonio to nearly Sagres when an almost impassable cliff edge shocked me with its power to undermine my resolve. I got back in the driving seat as it were a few days later, trying not to allow the shock to defeat me. I did this with a friend, a little like that passenger in the car from Cornwall to Scotland when our driving friend was stretching into motorways.

That was good, but I also had to reduce the frequency of the walks to attend to personal admin. And more pressingly, as July took hold, the weather in the Algarve became unbearably hot for my perimenopausal body. I had to hide indoors and only come out as the sun edged towards setting.

The heat disrupted my walk progress substantially. This was annoying. I had initially wanted to commence the walk earlier in the year, around March, to be able to complete it before the intense summer heat. Unfortunately, extracting myself from work entailed anxious, illness-intensifying weeks and months spent wishing to break free to really focus on recovery, but still being beholden to processes. This meant I could not begin my walk sooner. And being a wilful woman, I refused to consider starting the walk NEXT YEAR. I knew that if I delayed the start, it may never begin. So I started.

And then, of course, it did get too hot to continue, as I rounded the south west corner in July.

So the heat, panic, and personal reasons led me to change my walk from the daily and consecutive stomp that it had been across the south, to a walk now and then over the summer in the cooler evenings to bide time until Autumn when I could manage the heat again to complete the walk.

I was also fearful of that remote corner of the west which, whilst stunningly beautiful in its wild remoteness, cannot — for the same reasons — accommodate a vegan 40-something with ME in comfortable private rooms! There are a few hostels but these are not for me anymore. I will need my Support Manager to assist with transport until I am nearer civilisation again and can find accommodation.

The upshot of this slowing down of my mission has both physical and mental impact. I have gained weight over summer (the Portugal Paradox! Usually weight gain for me is a winter burden!) being unable to exercise outside on these endless hot days. My body is stiffer again, and the improvements I’d made in fitness and my ability to ascend steep coastal paths have been setback. The west is far hillier and since my body has returned more or less back to square one I’ll be starting again, but the challenge will be greater. And yes, this scares me. That is the mental impact: fear, and anxiety. I’m in danger of entering the Panic Zone.

So, I have returned to the paradoxical discomfort of that onerous Comfort Zone. To overcome this, I once again must set foot in the stretch zone and commence again the journey of Confidence Growth. Shit, I want to one day walk the Camino de Santiago. We’re going to have to bring in the big guns.

The confidence growth journey is not linear. Each setback requires renewed efforts to ameliorate, and those efforts require close attention and strong will.

Confidence and Completion

I’ve noticed in this Algarve coastline walk to recovery and confidence restoration that confidence building is closely linked to completion.

Perhaps through an undiagnosed ADHD or my CPTSD, I have spent many years starting projects with great vigour, only to leave them unfinished. Usually quitting while I’m ahead. The limbic brain and imposter syndrome win out, demanding I stay low, under the radar, before I get found out as a pointless excuse for a human being! I’m usually just starting to get great results, acclaim, when I destroy everything to… protect myself. This perverse way of living has led to a chain of uncompleted qualifications and great projects that could really have made a difference in people’s lives.

Walking the coastline and coming to this summer obstacle, I have realised that only through completion can confidence really start to embed in the muscles of our mind. To be able to say “I started that, and I did that” must surely give a sense of self worth and the ability to move on to the next challenge in the stretch zone. To keep growing and strengthening that confidence muscle. And certainly, the reverse must also be true. To leave things incomplete is a malignant tumour for confidence. To have resilient self belief we need to collect evidence of our courage and achievements.

For me, completion of the Algarve coastline this autumn, with all its attendant obstacles, is certain to restore my confidence to the levels I was experiencing during the south coast walk where I had begun to believe in myself and enjoy sharing my journey with others: being above the radar, not hiding from sight.

The above-radar thing is a case in point around my fragile confidence. Around the time I had reached Martinhal near the very end of the south coast walk (200km), a friend of a friend had taken it upon herself to be rude and unkind about a post I had made about my mental health. She thought she was being funny, and perhaps did not know the impact ridiculing my words to a mutual friend would have on me. I should not have been vulnerable to that, but in recovering from PTSD, and being always an oversensitive person, her words crawled under my skin, into my veins and laid eggs of fear. Am I enough? Should I be sharing my words? Does everyone think I’m ridiculous?

I choose to overcome this and step into the stretch zone again, to begin the walk as the days cool down further, and share again my journey. Because I know for everyone who would mock me, ten will cheer me on.

Having discovered that Completion is part of the magic formula in growing confidence, I plan now to ensure my current projects do not get kicked to the wayside. Not only do I have The Walk to complete but there is a Masters in Creative Writing to finish, and a novel to write. Not to mention overcoming my fear of open water by learning to canoe and scuba dive, or to simply face my fear of driving on the “wrong side of the road” on the continent, feel the fear and do it anyway, and jump in the car again after a several month hiatus from driving. Crikey, I drove a hulking long-wheel base LDV Convoy, I think I can manage these Portuguese roads in a car, can’t I?

In the past, I have allowed Julia Cameron’s CrazyMakers (see The Artist’s Way) to prevent my progress. They may have been alcoholics, abusers, narcissists, people who I loved too much (see Women Who Love Too Much) and whom I felt I needed to nurse to feel of value and worth myself, whilst their behaviour leading me paradoxically feeling of none. All of them were, without my knowing, a convenient method by which I avoided facing my own fears and growing. They were bad for me, but I unconsciously allowed them in, to surreptitiously disrupt my progress and forbid myself the glorious joy of Completion.

If the current CrazyMaker is me, then she needs relegating.

I would love to share with you my progress as I complete these challenges, live in my stretch zone and continue my journey in completion towards confidence. I shall be sharing with you this autumn not only the walk, but my progress with driving, being in open water, and my creative writing.

Have you experienced confidence setbacks and overcome them? Do you recall a time when completing something helped your confidence development. Say hello and let me know!

Warmest wishes

Danu