Elisa shared a different perspective with me – she carefully considered and attempted something specifically to get herself out of her comfort zone! 

“I actually regularly get out of my comfort zone when I’m at my work. If there’s something new and shiny to try – count me in! Nobody else would like to tackle a complex problem – I’m there! You want an early adopter or an exemplar to be used as guinea pig – Yes please.   

At the beginning of this year I realised that trying out new things at work is no longer “getting out of my comfort zone”. I needed something else to challenge me. I came up with these choices:  

1. Publish a book (this will take time and still scares me so much. Brene Brown didn’t manage to dare me for this yet)   

2. Jump from a plane over 10k feet and sky dive (I’m very scared of heights and I heard that sky diving will fix that. The only thing stopping me from doing this is well my anxiety attack. I tend to feel faint if I go higher than 4th floor of a building)   

3. Learn something physical, which I haven’t done before – either dance, music, martial arts   

Luckily both my daughters are karate students and since I’m already spending half our Saturdays at the dojo I might as well learn like them! So, I’m now into my fourth month of karate. So far, so good I haven’t received any real combos, but I do get bruised sheens from all the kicking.” 

Elisa had other good reasons for choosing karate “I chose karate out of all the challenging things I can do because right now it’s the most realistic challenge that I can sustain for more than 2 tries. I also wanted to see how I learn using my body, coordination, fitness (or lack thereof) and focus. I noticed that I love learning, but most of my learning have only been applied using my head and my mouth for talking a lot about it. This time I would like to learn differently.” 

I asked Elisa about her emotional journey, and she described it well “Before my first class, I was a ball of nerves. My oldest daughter is a brown belt and I’ve watched enough of her classes for the last 3 years to know how physically intimidating and exhausting learning karate can be. I worried about the fact that I don’t know how to do push-ups properly, I am not the sportiest person and don’t have stamina, and if [I would] able to follow the karate combos they will teach my class.   

The Saturday class is a “mixed belt” class which means I’m learning with the higher belts too! My first class was brutal! I had to be slammed (dropped) a few times during my class. I think I did more push ups and sit ups in a span of 20 minutes than all the push ups/sits ups I’ve done in the 42 years I’ve been on this planet. I struggled, felt like my heart would be ripped off my chest at some point. I was wiping sweat off my face every second wondering where the waterfall down my forehead was coming from. The higher belts kept telling me I was going well for a first-timer, which I guessed encouraged me to not leave the mats in the middle of the class and throw up.   

After my first ever class finished, I sorely walked to the change room. I felt totally wasted. But by the time I reached the car I wanted to go back in and do it again! I didn’t realise how fun and exhilarating it would be to get slammed.  

I’m now coming into my 4th month of learning. I have my eye on that yellow belt. I’ll take this one belt at a time. I’ve also noticed a confidence I’ve only seen in bad-ass heroines before. Wow, do I have my shoulders more upright and my head higher. And damn can I push up!  

Regarding stepping out of her comfort zone again, Elisa was clear “Yes. I’ll be working towards going up that list of challenges. I do somehow someday would like to deal with my fear of heights. And also publish a book. The interesting thing is seeing which will come first?’’ 

Elisa’s last words are: “Leaving a comfort zone for me means learning something new. It may be about something, about ourselves. If we frame it this way I feel more people would be bolder and take more risk. Because it’s not about losing our comfort, it’s about gaining something to improve ourselves, to feel fuller and well, new-er?   

“Thanks for letting me share my karate story! Happy to share how my grading will go in 4 months’ time.” 

Thank you Elisa!