We often hear in leadership talks or interviews regarding people talking about getting out of your comfort zone. But how difficult it is and how does it impact you in achieving your goals in life.
Two main emotions that shape your personality are fear and anxiety. When we stop letting these two emotions get in the way of our work, we eventually start making breakthroughs in our lives.
One of the major road block that I faced was comfort zone. Since I was born and brought up in Delhi and my entire schooling from Nursery to Class XII was done in the same school, I never understood the concept of adapting to new atmosphere. Thus when I got admitted to VIT Vellore, first year was the most difficult part of my life when I struggled with home Sickness combined with new Tamil culture. But that is where I realized that I am good with people – I can make friends easily, adapt to different cultures, and am able to blend people in a team easily – I was part of 3 clubs in VIT and headed 2 of them by third year because of my leadership skills.
The same roadblock I faced with my first job, where I was placed in the Investment Banking division of Capital Markets and I was part of Middle Office team. Having no prior experience in either Finance or IT, it was very difficult for me in the first 3 months to understand Capital Markets as well as the Technology used by Wells Fargo. But gradually I got out of my comfort zone and I was awarded Champions Award that same year and I became the youngest lead to head a team of 3 people and cater to Middle Offices in 3 Geo locations.
My next roadblock was while I was interning in ValueLabs as an Agile Sales Intern, as part of our Corporate Sector Attachment at DMS IIT Delhi. Since I had no prior experience in sales, it was another challenge for me to get out of my comfort zone, work 2-3 times more than other interns to understand how Agile Sales function and catch up with others along with adding value to the organization. I believe I was able to justify my role as an intern and had a lot of key takeaways from it.
In the end I would to conclude with a famous quote by Roy T Benett “We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone”.
#ABGLP #DMSIITD