How to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Succeed in New Territory Time to adopt the "snap-back" effect to reach future goals.
By Ben Angel
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The following article is based on Ben Angel's book, Unstoppable: A 90-Day Plan to Biohack Your Mind and Body for Success. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | IndieBound, and kickstart your own journey to become unstoppable with The Unstoppable Journal, a one-of-a-kind companion planner curated by Ben himself and designed to help you reach your goals with neuroscience, psychology and biohacking.
If you've ever tried to go after a big, scary, audacious goal or set out on a mission that took you outside of your comfort zone, only to fall flat on your face, you've experienced what I like to call the "Snap-Back Effect."
The Snap-Back Effect and How It's Keeping You From Your Goals
Attempting to leave your comfort zone and evolve into your new identity is like putting a stake in the ground that represents your old self, throwing a rubber band around it, stepping into the open loop and trying to sprint as far away from the stake as fast as you can, without building up your muscles first.
If you don't have enough energy to push against the tension, you'll snap back into your old self hard and fast. This old self is drenched in behaviors the primal brain considers safe, since it doesn't exert your energy levels further. The shock from the snap-back can dramatically impact the way we see the world and ourselves, making us cautious about future attempts at change. The key is to evolve into our new self without flipping the switch that makes us snap back and resume our former status quo.
Related: What Exactly is the Biohacking Movement?
The first signs of this snap-back effect will begin with mild symptoms such as brain fog, mild headaches and sleeping more than usual. These might be signs that you'll simply brush off. As you falsely adapt to them, the symptoms will eventually escalate to anxiety, stress and possible depression. Your body and brain will not stop reacting to the stimuli to reject change until you do something about it.
How We Sabotage Our Success By Not Supporting Our Goals
In this analogy, the first peg is your current version of yourself, and the end peg is the version of yourself you must become to achieve your goals. The band, of course, is your comfort zone. The mistake that so many make is that they see their goal and whom they want to become and try and race there, dragging their comfort zone along with them kicking and screaming. An epic recipe for disaster!
It's called a comfort zone for a reason. It's meant to be comfortable, which means that to grow it, you need to have the right biological foundation, as well as adequate psychological energy in place to support this gradual stretching. You wouldn't walk into a gym and load up a barbell with 400 pounds and will yourself to lift it in one go without having practiced, warmed up and slowly built up the strength in your muscles by adding smaller weights one at a time. We think we can take this same hurried slapdash approach to our goals because we've been lead to believe that "anything is possible if we believe it," a concept that is flawed at best and dangerous at worst.
Related: Why You Need to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
How to Apply New Biological Effects to Become Unstoppable
Taking a hard look at your biological foundation before you create hefty goals is crucial in dedicating your energies in the right direction. Are you getting adequate, quality sleep? How is your body reacting to stress? Are you dealing with brain fog, muscle fatigue, memory loss or depression? Do you suffer from anxiety, procrastination or lack of drive? By exposing the causation of these issues, you open up a new door of possibilities to gain control of your best self. Running on empty is only going to further deplete you and lead to diminishing returns.
Before my 90-day challenge that I outlined in my book, Unstoppable, I realized I could no longer maintain a manic schedule of 60 speaking engagements a year. I was no longer able to successfully get through my day without the need for caffeine jolts to keep my brain functioning, and my body was screaming for help. So, through careful biohacking my biology through lab tests, employing biosensor devices and changing my diet, I was able to slowly regain the energy and passion that I could then put back into my business.
In creating a step-by-step plan to creating a solid foundation for you and your business to grow, you must take care of the principal owner first and foremost: you. Then, with this renewed and strengthened biology, you can psychologically take on any challenge with the energy and vigor you and your goals deserve.
Are you ready to become unstoppable?
Visit www.areyouunstoppable.com and take your FREE 60-second online quiz now. By answering a series of simple questions, my software will analyze your results and provide you with a comprehensive report that will indicate your identity type and lead you to the tools and tips you need to close that gap between who you are and who you could be. Take the quiz to get started!
