Last year my son had a pair of football boots he absolutely loved. They were blue and orange, comfortable, and made him feel like his hero, Arsenal player Aaron Ramsey. Wearing them he learned to chip and dodge and feint. Theirs were the first laces he successfully tied in a double bow himself. He hung onto them long after they’d served their purpose: until the leather was peeling and scruffy, and more importantly until they were really too small for him and had started to hamper his skills rather than helping them. There was nothing comfortable about them at that point, yet still it took patient encouragement to persuade him into a new, bigger pair. As soon as he’d made the change, of course, his football improved overnight and he wondered why he’d been so wedded to his scruffy old pair.
It’s funny how we allow our ‘comfort zone’ to become so uncomfortable. And when we take the step, make the change, we look back and wonder how we ever put up with that constraint, that frustration, for so long.
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
William G.T. Shedd