How To Succeed Outside Your Comfort Zone
For those of you that don’t know, I work in the Oil & Gas Industry. When I tell people this, most people assume that I’m an engineer. Nope. In fact, my degree is in Public Health with a focus on Community Health. In college, I always had a vision of seeing myself work for my local community and educating others about to take care of their health. I never in a million years pictured myself traveling around the world to educate people working in operations and construction about how to work safely while on the job or advising a whole corporation about health and safety law.
The purpose of this post is not to brag about my job. It is to tell you that the importance of working and accepting roles outside of your comfort zone. My journey in my career started by applying for and getting accepted for an internship with an oil and gas company in Industrial hygiene and occupational safety (something completely different than what I studied in school). I was selected and placed in the middle of nowhere in Questa, New Mexico and found myself stewarding major projects and launching new health and safety programs. If I never allowed myself to be placed outside my comfort zone, I never would have discovered my talents in the health and safety industry.
It is not easy to willingly take on opportunities outside your comfort zone, especially when your counterparts and teammates appear to be much more knowledgable and educated than yourself. For myself, taking on challenges outside of my comfort zone presented obstacles along the way for me to overcome. The following are six rules to follow to help you succeed outside your comfort zone.
Use What You Know to Stand Out
Everyone has some sort of a skill or talent. It is important to showcase them no matter what position you hold. The first position in my career was very technical focus. I know myself to not be technical savey, although I know enough to get by. Instead of putting my entire energy in something I know to be an improvement area for me, I also focused on what I excel as and applied it to my job. I love writing and I am creative. I used these skills to find deficiences in team and created programs and procedures that helped address those deficiences.
Pick the Brains of the People Who Are Excelling
When I am amongst a group of people who are different from me, I tend to shy away from putting attention to myself. I am a creative person in a sea full of engineers and scientists so you can imagine how I feel. Becuase it is important for me to do well in my career, I knew I could not allow the sea of technical people swallow me up. Instead, I picked out a few people who stood out to me to be brilliant and picked their brain for everything they’re worth. I learned how they study, how they think, what resources they used, etc.
Ask All the Questions in the Beginning
The best part of having a different background than others around you is that everyone rushes to the desire to answer all your questions and teach you. Take advantage of that! This applies if english is your second language, if you are from a different culture, or just different. It is not to your advantage to pretend you don’t need help. Take the help!
Study… and Read A lot
A mistake I use to make back in school is studying the same amount as my smart friends. Study and read to the extent that you need to understand. Sometimes that means studying for your job on the weekends or late nights while others may not need to study to that extent. Sometimes, that may mean preparing a bit more for up coming trainings, meetings, or projects. In my job, I tend to have meetings and lead projects with coworkers who have technical expertise. To prepare, I study the technical information and meet with these coworkers ahead of time just to get familiar with the subject and terminology prior to attending a meeting.
Trust Whoever Hired You… They Know What They Are Doing
The company that hired me hired me knowing I was not an engineer. They hired me knowing I don’t have a degree in Industrial Hygiene. They hired me trusting I can do the job. Trust the company that hired you that they know exactly what your capabilities are and that you are up to the task.
Trust In Your Ability
At the end of the day, you have to have confidence that you are capable of accomplishing anything you put your mind to. Being successful takes hard work. Just do that work. It’s that simple.
What are some other ways to be successful when you are outside your comfort zone?
Until next time,
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