Welcome to Day 1 of The Greatest Year Challenge.
Over the next 7 days, I’ll share one actionable idea per day to help you bridge the gap between where you are right now, and where you want to be in the future. I designed each day to help you STRETCH and take action toward making your vision and goals a reality.
Ready to dive in?
To kick things off, we need to talk about a concept called Dynamic Tension…
Imagine a rubber band looped around your two index fingers:
Left finger = represents your current reality. This is where you are right now.
Right finger = represents your ideal reality. This is where you want to be.
When the rubber band is loose and slack, you’re in your comfort zone…
It feels safe. It feels cozy.
But as comfortable as it is, your comfort zone is also what’s keeping you from living the life you want.
People retreat to their comfort zone when they:
want to avoid fear
want to stop feeling overwhelmed
fall into complacency and want to avoid reality
The comfort zone is where you go when you know you should do something, but you just can’t get yourself to do it.
So, how do you get out of your comfort zone and actually make your ambitions happen?
Enter the Stretch Zone
To get from your current reality to your ideal reality, you’ve got to create tension—and enter what I call, the stretch zone.
Back to the rubber band…
You’re in your comfort zone when the rubber band is slack. No growth happens here.
You’re in the stretch zone when you push yourself… When you do hard things, you put the rubber band (you) under tension. This is where the real magic happens. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s necessary to pull yourself out of your current reality and toward your ideal reality.
The main idea is this:
You want to push yourself to the outer edges of your comfort zone, and into the stretch zone… All without entering the snap zone.
Warning: If you stretch too far, too fast, the band snaps. This is the equivalent of burning out. You end up worse off than when you started. Of course, we want to avoid this.
Actionable insights
Find a rubber band (or a hair tie) and put it around your wrist.
Keep it on for the next 30 days (ideally, forever). Use it as a constant reminder to stretch yourself. (Note: I’ll be referring to the rubber band and the concept of stepping into your stretch zone throughout this 7-day challenge.)
Use your rubber band as a trigger to stretch yourself. Whenever you feel complacency, laziness, or resistance about taking action and doing the work, glance down at your wrist and remind yourself to STRETCH past your comfort zone. (And if you’re feelin’ really spicy, you might even give the band a snap against your skin to serve as a personal call to action)
Take one small step toward your most important goal. Greatness is built by taking small steps daily. So, within the next 24 hours, take just one small step. When you feel that resistance to action, look at your wrist and remind yourself to step out of the comfort zone and into the stretch zone.
