Repetition Can Be Real Growth

“Nothing happens in your comfort zone” gets quoted like a law, but I’m not convinced it tells the whole truth. 

Sometimes the most meaningful growth happens in the quiet, repetitive middle when you keep showing up, keep practicing, and finally start seeing yourself differently. 

That’s the thread I pull on here, starting with a simple mantra I live by: it’s about showing up, not perfection.

I talk through the tension honestly, including what it felt like to stay in one organisation for years and slowly notice that comfort can turn into quiet dissatisfaction. 

Not dramatic, not rebellious, just that clear internal question: is this still it? From there we explore a more mindful way to think about change, career transitions, and personal growth without turning “leaving” into a badge of honour or “staying” into a shame story.

You’ll also hear a quick breathing reset to help you settle, plus two reframes that can change how you treat yourself: “practice makes progress” and the idea of tessitura, a singer’s most comfortable range, not as limitation but as mastery. 

We end with five reflection questions you can journal with right away, especially if you’re working on self-awareness, mental wellbeing, and learning how to move at your own pace.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who’s wrestling with a transition, and leave a review so more mindful partners can find the show. What’s one place in your life you might be rushing to leave?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hey, mindful partners. Yeah, it feels even better to say that after a much about mindfulness last week, where I explored what being mindful really is and what it meant to me. I hope that episode helped you as much as it helped me. Yes, I said that as much as it helped me. I can almost see someone rolling their eyes when I said that. But it is the truth. Oh, it is the truth because most times it is while I write that I understand what I'm trying to say, or when I am talking, is when I understand what I'm trying to say. And I am not being oh trying to be funny, it is just that way for me. And I'm sure some of you listening to it

Showing Up Over Perfection

SPEAKER_00 1:24

is in the showing up that clarity finds me, and that keeps me teachable, that keeps me grounded and very, very aligned with my mantra. It's about showing up, not perfection. Before we go any farther, you can help me serve you better by sharing your thoughts, what comes up for you in any of the episodes, or you can come to the WhatsApp group, or through the send us a message link in the show notes who says your response won't burst. A topic I would love to explore, you never know. And truly, I love to hear from you. Alright, alright, alright, let's go into today's exploration. Last week I mentioned alignment over activity, and even as I said it at that time, it sounded to me like one of those deep profound guru sayings. But maybe it is, maybe it isn't. There's work to exploit today.

Send Feedback And Join WhatsApp

SPEAKER_00 2:42

We've all heard it. Nothing happens in your comfort zone. If I am being honest, I've always had a quiet disagreement with that phrase. Because there are parts of my life where everything meaningful happened in what looked like a comfort zone. Growth didn't always look like movement, sometimes it looked like repetition, like staying, like

Questioning The Comfort Zone Quote

SPEAKER_00 3:18

doing the same thing until I understood it differently. Now, while exploring this thought, a very close friend said to me, it is social conditioning and cultural conditioning that makes us feel that when we are in a place or a season of inertia, we label it lazy. I'll repeat that again. It is social conditioning and cultural conditioning that makes us feel that when we are in a place or a season of inertia with labor lit lazy, aka comfort zone. Okay, before we push further with this reframing of comfort zones, let's pause just a little bit of pause, you know what's coming next. Take a deep breath, inhale slowly through your nose, four, three, two, one, hold it, and exhale, one, two, three, four. Can we do that again? Inhale, four, three, two, one, and exhale, one, two, three, four, inside out.

Guided Breath To Settle In

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Now, let's settle into this conversation. So Michelle, what do you mean by comfort zone? No, yeah, you have tension with comfort zone. You have a problem with comfort zone. But let me say this to you: I totally, totally understand the general concept of the comfort zone of that nothing happens in the comfort zone, but I constantly question how one reaches the comfort zone in the first place. And before you think I've lost my mind, let me reiterate that I comprehend the idea of staying in one place and how that can hinder personal growth. I understand staying too long. I have lived it for 21 years. I started and ended the first part of my career in one organization. The civil service.

When Staying Turns Into Dissatisfaction

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I leave the rest to your imagination. There's something no one tells you about staying too long. It stops feeling like comfort and starts feeling like quiet dissatisfaction. Like you are present but not fully alive. I remember a particular day, nothing dramatic happened. I just finished the show, I sat there, and something in me said, Is this still it? Not out of ingratitude, definitely not out of rebellion, because I loved my job and I still love it. It was just some awareness. I had a group of friends that we all started together in the late 90s. I'm not that old, like really, really late 90s and early 2000s. Well, while they left, I stayed. Because sometimes, like my friend says, Tomisha, your convictions are louder and bigger than your reality and your head. My friends and I believed we could recreate the world, we could create change in civil service, shift systems, do something meaningful. But they left, but I stayed long enough to feel out of sync with myself and the cause. So, yes, I understand the general concept of nothing happening in the comfort zone, but here is where Uluatsumishe pushes back. Sometimes the mundane is where the lesson is. As creators, and I sincerely believe you all are, we often wait until what we create looks like the perfect picture we've drummed up in our minds. But most times it doesn't. If I'm being generous, maybe forty percent of the time we get close to perfection. The other sixty percent, we're just experimenting, winging it, adjusting, figuring it out. You know the saying is um practice makes the perfect. My son helped me reframe it some years

Practice Makes Progress Through Repetition

SPEAKER_00 9:19

ago, about three years ago now, four years ago now. We were having a conversation and I was saying to him, practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect. And he said, I thought you guys say there is no perfection. I'm like, Yeah, and said, if there is no perfection, mommy, that saying is wrong. So I asked him, what should we be saying instead? He said, practice makes for progress, and I smiled to myself like whoa. Of course, I didn't show him, uh-uh. I'm an African mother, a Nigerian mother for that. I just smiled. I said, Oh, thank you, but I smiled. So, how do we get to the comfort zone? Through repetition, through practice, through showing up again and again and again. And as Zick Ziggler puts it, repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, and the architect of accomplishment. That is how you get to the comfort zone. Okay, let me bring it back to another part of my life that most people know. And if you don't know, well, now you know, you will find out music. There's a word in music, tessitura. I'm not sure I got that correctly, but tessitura, t-e-double s I t-u-r-a. The most comfortable range for a singer, but it is not about limitation, it is actually about mastery. A singer who finds their tessitura has explored their full range, their full voice range, and then found the sweet spot. That spot where the voice not only vibrates but comes together in a symphony and marries with other voices.

Tessitura And Finding Your Sweet Spot

SPEAKER_00 11:41

That sweet spot comes the comfort zone, and maybe what we call limitations are not always real. Sometimes there are stories we have told ourselves long enough to believe. Stories shaped by fear, by doubt, by past versions of us trying to stay safe. But here's what I'm learning. Growth does not always come from leaving. Sometimes it comes from seeing differently, from noticing the small shifts. The conversations you handled better. The moment you paused instead of reacting, the courage to try again. Because progress is rarely loud, it is quiet, consistent, easy to miss. If you're always chasing what is next, and in all of this, self-awareness becomes your guide,

Quiet Growth Through Self Awareness

SPEAKER_00 13:28

not pressure, not judgment, just awareness, and maybe that is why we don't do this alone. Because sometimes you need people who can see you clearly when you cannot. So no, the comfort zone is not the goal, but neither is it the enemy. So maybe the question is just is not just should I leave my comfort zone, but also have I learned what this place came to teach me. Now, a huge caveat, very huge one, that I push back at this tension or try to find the entry of this tension between comfort zone and moving from the comfort zone. I am not giving permission to complacency. No, it is an invitation to enjoy the transitions, to notice your growth, to celebrate your progress. It is an invitation to find your own balance, it is an invitation to find your own rhythm, it is an invitation to find your own singing tessitura, that sweet spot. Inhale surely hold it and let it out with a big side. As you let go that deep cleansing breath, ask yourself where in your life are you rushing to leave? A place that is still shaping you. So let's get to the questions for the week. You know you don't have to rush through this, allow the answers to come to you. One, what does my current comfort zone look like? Did I grow into it or settle into it? What is this season teaching me? Where do I need courage to move and

Five Reflection Questions For The Week

SPEAKER_00 16:46

patience to stay? And finally, what does progress look like for me right now? Enjoy your becoming gently until next time. Share, give us a like that gives us a little bit more visibility, and we can share this message of leaving mindfully and you know reframing narratives around mental health questions and leaving um mental whole being. Oh, yeah, mental whole being, yeah, well-being, whole being. You get the picture. Then, if you think it supports your journey, join the WhatsApp group. The link is in the show notes, and you can continue. You and I can continue this conversation or other conversations, and maybe we can help each other gain more clarity. Remember to send us a message in the sent message link just below, just below the show notes. And um, yeah, I have a book. The title is Living Mindfully a Journey to Bean. You can get a copy online, and

Share The Show And Keep Going

SPEAKER_00 18:26

the link is in the show notes. A shout out to my very, very funny and mindful assistant, Toby Goosey. Thank you very much for the work you do. Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your country. Above all of this, love God, He is the essence of your being. I am Uluwa Tsumishi on Ladaku Cuckoo. Stay mindful.