I work with an IT firm, a fancy one. So we have those motion sensor lights.

The other day I was working late and actually enjoying it! There were very few people in the office. The vibes were amazing so I was snug up in my comfortable agronomic chair. And so peacefully settled that, those light just went off. My face was lit with the computer screen light. And I looked like the NUN in real life. But I was too comfortable to even move an inch to switch it on. But then I finally had. I had to get uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to get the work done. Get the shit done.

Someone smart once said, what you need is right around there, exactly an inch away from your zone – your comfort zone. It’s just about crossing that line and seeing how worth it was to get out of the comfort zone.

Back in my college days, I was way too comfortable in the situation that I was. I was comfortable being the silent kid in class. I was comfortable with having that group of 5 people. I was just way to settled with everything. I really enjoyed talking but only to said group of friends. Ask me to a party and you have taken an unpaid hell of a job at your hand.

This in no way had any adverse effect on me. Everything was good. Now I used to write a lot and showed it to our faculty of Humanity. She thought it would be a great idea to present that in a coming speech competition in front of humans. Actual alive humans. For her that was a great idea, for me it was a recipe for disaster. I mean, me on stage, Hannibal humans, my content, what could go wrong. But she was extremely persuasive and she made me do it. More or less for extra credits but I had to do it. I was given a week to prep. I went to the auditorium, hoping to find nerds. But I forgot I was at Nirma University, full of Nerds. So I was staring at a crowd of some 500 plus people while waiting to go on stage. My turn, I just wanted to get over with it. Once on stage, all I was hoping for someone to cast reducto and I would just go down in ashes. I looked on the floor, gave my whole speech and got off the stage. Let’s not talk about how I was looking like I was in the middle of an earthquake and tsunami of sweats at the same time. I obviously did not win at any position.

But I was soon approached by one of the judges, appreciating the content. He made sure I knew my content was good, I, however, was awful. But the conclusion was I can write, and people would like to hear/ read the content if it were to be presented in a better way. I got uncomfortable on the stage and people actually enjoyed the content. I got the idea of what I am able to and what I can work upon. After this incident, I took part in around 7 such speech competition. Won in none. But Improved a lot. Through the journey, there are a few things that I have learned and would like to share it with you.

To get uncomfortable, first and foremost what you need to do it:

Find the most uncomfortable situation and throw yourself into it. In a first few attempts it would shatter your self-confidence, but to be brutally honest it was not there anyway, so what do you have to lose, right?

It’s said that once you get into the messy bowl of spaghetti, your only way out is to eat it. So eat it!

The second thing to do is ‘Be the dumbest’.

We have been trained to be the smartest, best, fastest and what not. All the superlatives. That has made us have a superiority complex, where we already feel better than others. This way we lose so many opportunities to learn and grow. Ah, the comfort of searching a new word that we heard at home rather than asking and get laughed on. So when I say “Be the dumbest” doesn’t mean you are the dumbest, take it as to surround yourself with more smart, more hard-working people. This increases your chance to learn something new, every time you are just even chilling with them.

The third thing is to be vulnerable.

This is the hardest one on this list. When someone says they are vulnerable, people assume they are emotionally weak. Let me tell you what exactly does vulnerable mean? Vulnerable means being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed. This says exposed to the possibility of. when you are not vulnerable, you shut yourself from doing anything, meeting anyone just to avoid getting hurt. But that way you also close yourself from finding something or someone that makes you happy!

Be unapologetically yourself.  O, I can’t even stress enough on why this is important. It’s very comfortable to copy the world opinion and paste it on your head. Because there won’t be any offense to that. But understand, until and unless you have something different to bring to the table, you are not invited to this party. While starting my blogs, I always the mindset that, O I like this blog and I want to write like them! Back then I was given very very good advice. I was told, “Once you start writing like that, people will not see you in your words, they would just feel the essence of the person you are trying to be like.” Until and unless it’s essentially you in your words, how are you putting yourself out there? Every tutorial of ‘How to start a blog’, ‘how to start a youtube channel’, all have the first step as BE AUTHENTIC, and that is the most unauthentic thing ever! But if it works it works right? People know who you are just by the first glance at something you put out.

Example? Every time you read a totally fucked up title or see an unconventional poster that’s absolutely f-ing up your mind, you know it’s going to be mine.