How To Move Past Your Comfort Zone And Strive For More Than The Status Quo

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

For the most part, human beings are creatures of habit. We seek out comfort and familiarity and typically, adapt quickly to steady routines.

Playing it safe, we go about our lives by moving from one anticipated milestone to the next, following our assigned blueprints and meeting the expectations we set for ourselves.

There is nothing wrong with craving stability; there are few things more satisfying than finding a groove with which you feel comfortable, or a pace that suits your stride. Life is so much easier when it unfolds the way we plan, with minimal bumps in the road.

At what point in following the daily routine do we allow ourselves moments to deviate, look around and analyze whether or not the "safe" surroundings we have aligned have actually begun to feel stale and stagnant?

Few people in the world can honestly say that they are living their idyllic lives and are being their authentic selves. To those who can, I offer congratulations and a gold star. For the rest, I ask, "What have YOU done to shake things up?"

To make the most of this one short life that we have, we should always be striving for more. We should never be satisfied with the status quo. We will never discover who we are as individuals without taking some chances and forcing ourselves to venture past our comfort zones.

A few months ago, I started to feel sluggish. I would wake up with little motivation to do much beyond rolling over and going back to sleep. I wondered why I was having so much trouble falling into my familiar day-to-day routine.

I had no new stresses in my life and those that existed were fairly under control. Work was progressing at its usual pace and my relationship was somewhere between good and great on the scales. So then, why the sudden lapse in energy? What was my body trying to tell me?

It hit me later that evening, as I sat restlessly in front of the TV, watching Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." I thought about what a nightmare that must be, to have to wake up every day and live the same day, repeatedly.

Even the greatest of days would surely be ruined by the endless repetition of events. How exhausting and draining that must be. Then, it hit me: I was LIVING this film. To a certain degree, my every day was just like the day before and undoubtedly, like the one to come.

With some panic and self-applied pressure, I began to make changes. Little ones, sure, but enough that now, four months later, I don't know how I ever lived differently. Granted, no action I took was so great that my life changed drastically, it changed -- for the better.

I decided that one major issue I was overlooking was the lack of any creative outlet in my life. I had passions and ideas brewing inside me and zero time allotted in my day to nurture them.

I wasn't in a position to quit my job and move to Bali, but the next best thing still meant breathing new life into my otherwise lackluster blueprint.

I started a blog (yes, another person with a blog) and I started writing again. Suddenly, I had some new identity beyond the norm in my day, some new person inside myself whom I was getting to know.

It was refreshing to think that I had something new to which I could look forward; some new facet of my world to which I could contribute. That's how I came to write for Elite Daily, actually.

Sometimes, all it takes is a subtle push in a new direction to recognize that there is more out there to be discovered if you are open to deviating from the plan every now and then. Try something new whenever you can and if you find yourself waking up to the same life each day, maybe it's time to start changing the dreams.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It