The talk on How to Expand Your Comfort Zone was delivered by Miss Devanshi Thakkar,
Psychologist, Hypnotherapist and Life Coach at ICHARS. The talk was delivered on 26th
April 2019. This talk was conducted in collaboration to ICHARS Support Foundation.
Objectives :
~ Learn to identify your comfort zone.
~ What are the triggers that create an urge in us to move out of comfort zone.
~ Understand Why Comfort Zone is not always bad
~ Learning to become comfortable with the uncomfortable
~ Learn techniques that will help you to expand your existing comfort zone.
Target Audience : Participants from all age group attended the talk. Some of the participants were from psychology background and some were from non psychology background.
Highlight of the talk : When we go through our social media we usually encounter the idea of moving “out” of our comfort zones” but this talk focused on rather how to “expand” your comfort zone.
Description : Because we automatically make ourselves comfortable wherever we go, and try to find our best comfort possible, the workshop began with an icebreaker. The participants were ask to
do any one thing which made them uncomfortable like, sitting on the floor, initiating a
conversation with other participants and so on. The ice breaker aimed at making the
participants comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. The basic idea about comfort zone was made known to the participants. They were made aware of how comfort zones are developed as a result of certain experiences and behaviours over a period of time. This was followed by an activity in which the participants identified their respective comfort zones. In this activity participants were asked to form a circle. Participants were given various situations like swimming in the river, speaking in front of a large audience and so on. If the situation given was comfortable for them to do it all they had to do is to take a step ahead and step inside of the circle. And if they would not do the particular thing given in the situation they had to take a step back as a part of this activity. The motive of this activity was to make participants aware of what things they are comfortable doing and what things they are not comfortable with. The things which they are comfortable doing formed their comfort zone. With this awareness what instils in us the idea to move out of our comfort zone was informed to them. It further proceeded with “why” we choose to be in our comfort zones and the various reasons so as to why the thought of moving
out of the comfort zone creates a sense of anxiety in us many times. As the talk proceeded participants introduced to the highlight of the talk which was not to go in line with the popular notion, which is to “move “ out of the comfort zone, but instead to expand the existing comfort zone. This was taught to the participants with the analogy of rubber band. Just like the rubber band expands, and initially when it expands there is a stretch but after that it becomes normal. Same is the case with comfort zone. Also comfort zone is subjective in nature. It depends from person to person and situation and situation to situation was informed to the participants. The talk proceeded towards its end with various tips to expand existing comfort zone. After informing about various steps participants visualised all the listed steps followed by progressive relaxation.