The concept of a "Comfort Zone" is not mine, nor have I studied the concept before I have developed the ideas that I can attach to it. I prefer to work this way; though I'm not providing this as an excuse for someone to emulate and not study the subject afterwards.

The concept concerns the situational areas within which you are comfortable. Wages are a simple example. The lower border of your comfort may be, say, $10,000 per year; the upper border may be $30,000. If you drop below that you may be uncomfortable, but it's familiar, at least. If you exceed 30K, it's also uncomfortable, but it's also unfamiliar; and you think it's not "allowed" to tell your buddies how good you feel about it. Zones apply to relationships of all kinds, self-esteem, how nice a house and what part of town you'll live in, what sort of friends you'll have, what job, how far you'll go in it, etcetera.

Now; as to my contemplations...

In the best sense, feeling "uncomfortable" can be a useful awareness; a subtle message from your subconscious that an action is not consistent with your integrity. It may be hard to discriminate this from another sense that it takes.

To a degree, "uncomfortable" is also a subconscious judgment about how you "should" feel, and of how you believe others will see and judge you. Mostly, these feelings arise from subconscious memories, and are thus far out of date. Your habits try to maintain their old status quo; you may still remember your paper-route money.

This makes a distinction between the zone and your habit. Your zone moves up automatically as you grow more experienced, expert and mature. Your habit changes, but more slowly, especially in those who suppress communication to and from their subconscious. Aye, there's the rub; a conflict between the two visions of the self. Sometimes, the lower border of the zone will hit the upper border of the old habit.

It's even possible to be in two or more zones at once. A man can be within his zone regarding his relationships with other men while sitting in a bar complaining about feeling below his zone (uncomfortable-familiar) about women. But he'd not talk about his promotion and big raise (uncomfortable-unfamiliar). Complaining, however, does very little toward moving you back into a comfortable situation. In fact, because there is some degree of comfort obtained, it may reinforce you toward doing nothing. Getting support after failing would influence many people away from trying to succeed, as our nature "intends".

You need to feel uncomfortable (above your zone) for enough time to get comfortable, then --when it feels right-- climb to the challenge again. You can rephrase the "uncomfortable" to read "exciting"; it's about time, you've been pushing that zone upwards since you first took breath. Even learning to walk was an extremely difficult challenge; always underrated ... by adults.

You have a built-in tendency toward health; physically, emotionally, psychologically. Part of that health is growth. There is an excitement in challenge and growth that feels like a reward in itself. You will, as a matter of nature, challenge that upper border of comfort. You're aware of how the human spirit rebels against limits; this is usually healthy.

The zone idea ties in with my idea about the transactional analysis "strokes". It's said that you need about eight personal- recognition strokes a day. I say further, that if you don't, you build up a "stroke-deficit" just as a lack of monetary income will build up a money-deficit; and you'll have to pay interest! The next incoming stroke will have a lesser value, say ".9 stroke". When you get too far behind, it's literally depressing. Some people are as uncomfortable getting strokes as some are having money; and they'll keep themselves in one or the other state of debt.

Our Zone is built up in our subconscious out of the total of influences we've had in life. Early criticism can set us in an insidious and deep rut. As we take up some of the roles of our models, they often include that of the critic. Imagine having a Zone that lets someone feel comfortable only when there's a certain level of criticism felt; any less and they'd make up something to get the level back to where it's "supposed to be"; "supposed to" being an external control. After all, the self- critic learned it somewhere; it's not a natural process.

A child may observe adults complaining and seeming to have problems (or, conversely, to feel bored) continuously and forever; and that that's the way those adults expect life to be. The child observes and absorbs. In other words, the adults pass on to the child--a Zone of what number of problems there are "supposed to be". Have you noticed people who always have the same number of problems, no matter how hard they seem to try to solve them, and no matter how much help they get?

If a child is given many "can'ts", it puts almost every accomplishment outside the Zone. If, by chance, something gets done well (uh-oh!), a way often seems to present itself that will lose what growth or pride may have been gained.

If someone's "too" successful, and doesn't subconsciously arrange to lose the gain, they can find themselves with what's been called the "Impostor Complex". They feel that they must keep the dark secret that they are not who people think they are; that their real selves couldn't do the things that their facade is really doing. (Silly, isn't it? So who is it that's doing it?)

The "Impostor" may feel that s/he doesn't deserve what s/he's gotten, or will find some way of denying or defeating success. The Impostor is over his Comfort Zone in the success area, and may feel forced to develop a facade, at least till his Zone grows. It has happened that someone's lucked into such success that the Zone never catches up, because he's exceeded his Peter Principle. He's uncomfortable for a good reason.

Having mentioned Mr. Peter's idea, I must say parenthetically that there is almost no incompetence, short of retardation. A person may become competent at whatever s/he's motivated enough to change themselves for.

Sometimes there's a failure of awareness, and someone may throw away the gain, going back down into a comfort zone as a kind of counter-pride. Their identity is set within that zone, instead of feeling that their identity is itself a process of growth. You are free to be aware of that power. You have the power to be aware of that freedom. You have the awareness to be free.