There is no better feeling at work than feeling in control.
I don’t mean in terms of being ‘the boss’, but in terms of being confident you can handle whatever life throws at you.
In essence, every challenge becomes a task – something that requires your attention but will never put you in a position of panic.
And that’s when you know you need to put yourself in some sort of career danger.
While no one likes the feeling of being out-of-control or scared shitless, the ‘comfort zone’ is equally as dangerous.
I wrote something about this a while ago, but I recently caught up with a friend who took this advice in a pretty extreme way.
Justin was a successful trader.
He’d been a successful trader for 7 years and then one day, he decided to become a surgeon.
Yes, A SURGEON!!!
He basically walked away from a great career, salary and lifestyle and put himself in a situation where he was paying a huge amount of money to feel inadequate.
And here’s the thing. He hated feeling that way … loathed it … but he is sticking with it for 2 key reasons:
1. He hasn’t felt he was learning so much in decades.
2. He knows/hopes, that one day he’ll not feel so helpless and that feeling of triumph over adversity will give him a sense of achievement he cannot comprehend.
I think Justin is awesome.
Not to mention inspirational.
And while I don’t think you have to go to such extremes to feel alive, I do think it’s important you find ways to maintain that sense of ‘nervous energy’ in your day-to-day job.
That might not be able to be done every single day, but if you haven’t experienced it in a few months, it’s time to take some action because comfort zones kill potential and you might never find out what you’re really capable of doing.