24: How to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and Build Real Confidence

In this episode of the Build Strong Women podcast, we’re diving deep into the topic of comfort zones—what they are, why we stay stuck in them, and how to start stepping outside of them in small, brave ways.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re meant for more but fear, doubt, or routine keeps holding you back, this conversation is for you. I'm sharing real-life examples, practical mindset shifts, and simple ways to build confidence by doing things that challenge you, without overwhelming you.

You’ll learn:

• What your comfort zone really is and how it’s keeping you small
• Why stepping outside your comfort zone is key to personal growth and confidence
• How to take small, doable steps toward a stronger, bolder you
• Encouragement to break patterns and start believing in what’s possible

This episode is packed with motivation, tools, and heart—because becoming the best version of yourself starts with getting a little uncomfortable.

Follow along on my COMFORT ZONE journey over on Instagram! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi, I'm Laura Orlando and welcome to the Build Strong Women podcast. I believe as women that we are the role models for the next generation of girls. So how do we become the best role models for these young girls? We work hard to become the best version of ourselves, whatever that means to you. It's not easy. It takes work. It takes learning, trying new things, falling down and getting back up again. But that's what we do on the show. We dive deep into how we can grow on the inside. We will learn from women that are on the same journey as us. Just trying to become the best version of themselves. Let's learn together, build our confidence, learn to love who we are so that we can teach the next generation of girls to grow up to be strong and confident women. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Build Strong Women podcast. Thank you so much for being here and tuning into this week's episode. At the time of this recording, it is finally summer break. As a teacher, summer just feels like a complete reset, a complete refresh for me, and I absolutely love it. So I'm super excited to be recording this episode during the day. It just makes me happy to be able to do these kinds of things during the day and not having to wait till nine o'clock at night when everyone's sleeping in My house is quiet. I can do it right now. I'm so excited. So I'm really excited about this week's episode because we are talking about comfort zones. And I am going to be doing something for myself this summer. that is outside of my comfort zone. And I'll talk about that later, but I really want to talk about comfort zones and how we need to make an effort to go outside of our comfort zones. Because if we don't, we are going to stay in the same place as we are right now. So if you don't know, a comfort zone is like this invisible bubble around us in our daily life where everything just feels safe and it feels predictable. It's that routine that you already know. You don't have to make hard choices. Everything's just easy around you. And trust me, Growing up, that is how I wanted to live. I wanted to live in my comfort zone. I never wanted to go outside of my comfort zone because I thought that meant that something was wrong. There's no risk involved when you stay in your comfort zone. You're just in this safe little space. Now, that bubble isn't a bad thing, and I totally get it. It actually serves a purpose. It helps us feel this secure and safe way. It's not this overwhelming feeling. But when you stay in that comfort zone, you kind of just stay Stay in that bubble. You never do anything that scares you. You never do anything that takes risk. You never do anything that helps you grow inside. We kind of just stay stagnant or stuck and we avoid trying new things. And we often like talk ourselves out of trying something new because we kind of talk to ourselves and say, well, what if I'm not good at that? Or what if I fail? Or who am I to even try something like that? That's what we tell ourselves. And often as moms and women, we just push that aside and we just say, you know what? It's fine. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to try this. And even though inside we really want to do it and we just push our feelings down, we push our wants and our needs and we push the things that we really want to do in life down because we're busy taking care of everyone else. We have careers. We're mothers. We have relationships in our lives. And it's easy to just stay in that comfort zone bubble and forget that we are supposed to stretch. We are supposed to grow. And If we stay in the same space and we don't listen to those little whispers inside of ourselves that we want to do something new or we want to try something, we just stay stuck. And why do we stay stuck in this place? Because stepping outside our comfort zone is scary, period. It brings up fears. It brings up fear of judgment from others. We fear falling down. We fear failing. We fear looking weird in front of other people or not being good at something when we try it. And sometimes fear is actually actually wanting more and not knowing how to do it and let's be real when we're already tired and we have so many things on our plate and our confidence feels less than it's easier to just stay in our comfort zone and do what we already know than to do something different to go off the deep end to rock the boat it's easier to just to stay stuck but here's the truth no one talks about this enough staying in your comfort zone doesn't make your life easier in the long run. It makes it a lot smaller. So I want you to picture yourself 50 years from now, depending on how old you are, and you're lying in your bed and it's your time to go. And you think to yourself, you know what? What am I really proud of that I did in my life? What am I really proud of? Yes, you're proud of your family and everything you did, but just think about you for one second. You don't want to get another year older. You don't want to be on that bed thinking, you know what? I wish I would have tried that. What would have happened? Maybe something amazing would happen. Maybe something not amazing happens. You'll just never know because you never took the risk to do something outside of your comfort zone. You don't want to be another year older. You don't want to be a decade older. You don't want to get to the end of your life and regret not going for something that is in your heart. You will always wonder what if. And to me, that is a form of absolute torture to get to the end of your life and think what if I would have tried that I wonder what would have happened absolutely not I don't want you to live that way I want you to take risks what would happen if you would have said yes to an opportunity what would have happened if you started that business or that side hustle or just something that you're curious about and I'm not going to say that you're going to love everything that you try but how would your life be different I listened to a podcast and she interviewed someone who would go and visit the dying and the number one thing that they said is the regret of not trying something because they just played it safe. And that's what I don't want you to do. I know this is sounding a little morbid, but I'm telling you, you have to go outside your comfort zone. You have to push yourself even a little bit because what's waiting for you on the other side is your growth, is opportunity, is something literally amazing. You start to really build your confidence when you start stepping outside of your comfort zone and you start doing the things that you said you would do. You said start keeping those promises to yourself because you're stretching yourself and you're not going to be perfect you're going to fall down and it's not going to feel good but that's okay what I tell my kids all the time is that you have to get comfortable with that uncomfortable feeling of going outside your comfort zone when my kids have to do something for school or stand up in front of their class and speak or whatever it is things that I do in my own life you have to be okay and you have to know that that uncomfortable feeling is going to happen it doesn't mean you're doing It doesn't mean that you should turn around. Yes, in certain circumstances, of course, that's what it means. But in things like that, you have to tell yourself, okay, I'm going to get uncomfortable and it's okay. It's normal. You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And when you start doing this, you're going to see that you're going to start trusting yourself a little more. You're going to show everyone around you that look what I can do. I can do hard things. I can try. I can grow. And guess what? It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be easy. But that's not what it's all about. You are going to show everyone around you that you can do hard things. And they don't want to see you doing something perfectly. They just want to see you trying. I think it's more inspirational and motivational when I see someone trying something even if they stink at it. I think it's really, really cool because they faced their fear and they took the next brave step. Okay, so now let's get into how do we actually start stepping outside of our comfort zone and take the next brave step for us in our life. And I want you to know that everybody's comfort zone is different. For me, some things in my comfort zone, you would think I'm absolutely crazy because you You think it's just easy and you love doing those kinds of things. Absolutely not. Everyone's comfort zone is different. So there's no like judging on anyone's comfort zone or you don't need to compare your comfort zone to anyone else's because you might be very outgoing and love to public speak and all those kinds of things. And someone else might be absolutely terrified hiding in the corner when they have to ask a question or answer a question or anything like that. So you have to understand that everyone's comfort zone is different. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to acknowledge where your comfort zone is at what is an area in your life that feels really small right now or where do you feel you have an itch for something more or what is something that you dream about or a better question is what is something that you're really curious about I am super curious about learning how to do pickleball I know this isn't like something outside my comfort zone but I'm like curious about it I want to try it I want to see if I would like it maybe it would be something that I would love to do I will never know unless I try so you have to think think in all different areas of your life. It could be through your creativity, your friendships, your health, or your big, most wildest dreams. I want you to acknowledge something that you are a little curious about or you really dream big about deep inside yourself. Maybe no one else even knows that you are thinking about this and you are almost a little afraid to tell anyone. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to understand that it's going to be a little scary to even think about. You You have to be okay with that nervous feeling. You're going to have to accept the fear. It doesn't mean that you're not ready. It just means that you are a human. You are a human being and fear is just a sign that you're just right there on the edge of growing. And you're not going to get rid of that fear at all either. when you even try this activity or you try to do something new. You're not going to get rid of that fear. That fear is going to be with you. You're going to feel a little uncomfortable. You have to just take that fear and that uncomfortable feeling with you. If you step outside your comfort zone, it's going to be uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong or bad or it's not for you. And that's what I took with me for years and years and years in my life. When I felt a little uncomfortable, I just felt like, oh my gosh, this isn't for me this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing I never tried out for any team when I was younger because I just felt like I'm not good enough and I didn't understand that if I kept going I could learn and I just had that uncomfortable feeling and I'm like oh this must not be for me so you have to understand that you are going to have fear and you're going to feel uncomfortable and that is totally normal Okay, the next thing I want you to do is I want you to take action. I want you to write down the one thing that you wanna do that's gonna help you step outside of your comfort zone. What's something that you're curious about? What's something that you think about all the time? And I want you to take action on it, but I don't want you to go in 150%. We're not gonna go from zero to 100 and dive in deep, especially if you're not used to doing things outside of your comfort zone, okay? So say that you want to run a marathon. That is your dream. I want to run a marathon or even if it's a 5k, I want to do something like that. I want you to go to the B version or even the C version of that and that just might be taking a walk around your neighborhood. That might be going to the peninsula or somewhere that you live at a park and you're going to walk the trails there. I want you to Sign up for that B or C version. I don't want you to go signing up for a marathon when you haven't even taken a walk around your own neighborhood, okay? The point is to move, to not be perfect at it, Yes, eventually you want to run that marathon. That's completely amazing and totally awesome. But I want you to start really, really small, okay? So if your dream is to run a marathon, take the first step, get on your shoes and go outside and walk. And then I want you to start running and then you can go from there, okay? So it's just about taking one small step. You have to take action. You can't sit on your couch and say, I want to start a business or I want to start a side hustle and and just sit on your couch and daydream all the time. It doesn't work like that. Trust me, I love daydreaming. I love Pinterest. I love like thinking of all the ideas, but you have to take action. That happened to me every moment in this business and starting my podcast and showing up on social media. It's just, I'm not, this isn't comfortable for me. I have to go outside my comfort zone to come on this microphone and talk to you right now. It's uncomfortable. I don't think I know everything. I absolutely do not. I'm not an expert by any means. I never went to school for this. It's just something that I'm really passionate about and it's something that I want to do. I want to do this in my life. I want to help women and I can't do that if I'm sitting on my couch watching TV. I have to take action. I have to do the BNC version at first and then I can go all in and that's what I want you to do. So think of one thing that you could do that's going to help you step outside your comfort zone this summer. So in the spring when I was teaching and I had a couple moments alone by myself, I was just thinking about, okay, what are some like mini comfort zone things that I could try and get myself to do? Because I can stay stuck in this really comfortable place. Because right now, I am comfortable behind the microphone. But if I was like on video and I was trying to do this live on Instagram or YouTube or something like that, I would be absolutely terrified. Okay, that is something that's completely outside my comfort zone. And now that I'm talking about it, saying this It's probably something I should do with my podcast is put it on video. But right now, I'm comfortable because I'm behind the microphone. I have my computer right here. I literally have no makeup on in my pajamas, and I am just talking to you like you're one of my friends. And so I was thinking, okay, I need to push myself outside my comfort zone this summer. I'm not going to stay in this really comfy place this summer. Last summer, I was not in a good place. Like I said, I did this... promise challenge for myself last summer, where I'm going to keep a promise to myself and actually follow through on it. And it literally changed my life. And that's why I created the summer promise challenge for this summer. And I wanted to do something similar to that. So I'm not just staying stuck in the summer because I do love summer as a teacher. It's relaxing. It's fun. It's a reset for me. But at the same time, I can get in a Not so good a place because I'm not following through on the things that I want to do. And sometimes I think I need to push myself outside my comfort zone to really get me motivated and to take the leap on something new. So I was brainstorming all these little things that I could do for myself that are like little mini comfort zone challenges that I could try. So I want you to do the same thing for you. I wrote a list and I'm going to be sharing about it on Instagram. I'm actually starting this week of little things to push myself outside my comfort zone. And you might think some of my things are actually a little crazy, but I want to do this for myself. And You might think that these aren't going outside of your comfort zone at all, but maybe some of them of my ideas you're going to actually like and you're going to try as well. So some of the things that I wrote down, I'm not going to share all of them, but some of the little things that I wrote down are one of them is I want to read a fiction book. I am obsessed with nonfiction books and learning and growing. And what can I do next to be the better version of myself? And I never take the time to just like relax and just relax. Just be. So one of my goals is to read a fiction book this summer. So that's what I'm going to do. It's completely outside my comfort zone. I know the entire time I might be thinking like, oh my gosh, this is such a waste of time, but it's something that's going to push me outside my comfort zone. I also want to take a hike in the woods with my husband. I want to go live on Instagram. That is very scary for me to be on video. I'm going to try to go makeup free for an entire week. I feel like sometimes I hide behind my makeup like I can't go do I can't do this. I can't do that because I don't have my makeup on or done. I can't be on video. I want to go makeup free for a whole entire week and just be free, not even think about it or care. The next thing I want to do is I want to run a mile without stopping. Okay, you might be laughing right now, especially if you're a runner, but I... I don't know what it is. There's a certain point in my run where I just like stop. I'm like, okay, I just have to walk a little bit. I don't think I can do this. I want to run a whole mile without stopping. And then my son's in the basement right now running three miles on the treadmill like it's nothing. Another thing that I want to do is I want to reach out for possible collaborations with my business and sending those scary emails to people that I want to collaborate with. And yes, it's super uncomfortable and things like that. but I really wanna do that. Another thing I wanna do is I wanna write a lot of words for my book this summer. My goal is to write 40,000 words for my book. We'll see if that happens. But it's something that's really going to push me outside my comfort zone because I know I can be like, nope, I'm going to do this instead. I'm not going to write my book because that's something that's so in the future. But I really want to take the time to do that. And it's going to get me a little uncomfortable because I'm going to push myself to do it. So I have a lot of other things I'm going to try this summer that's really going to help me step outside of my comfort zone. And I hope that you'll follow along with me over on Instagram. It's going to be fun. And I'm going to take you along the way. It's not something that I'm going to put out for everyone. Like if you want to try this challenge, it's really for me, but I would love for anyone that wants to do some comfort zone things too. Maybe we can do this together because it is uncomfortable to do things that you think are a little scarier out there. And I know that it just helps us grow and to learn and just to be a better version of ourselves. And you are so much braver than you give yourself credit for. Bravery is not this like loud, flashy thing. And that's what I'm not trying to do on Instagram. I'm actually really doing this for myself. I'm like, I want to do these things to help me grow inside. Being brave is actually quiet and steady. And it shows up in those tiny little moments where we tell ourselves we're enough for even trying. You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need to wait for the right time. You just need a little willingness to like believe in yourself for once in your life. and show up messy and show up when it's hard and to show up when it's uncomfortable. And that's what it takes. That's what it takes to grow. It is uncomfortable to step outside your comfort zone, but you have to do it. So here's my challenge for you. I want you to pick one small brave thing that you can do this week. Let's do this together. What's one small thing that you can do? Not because you want to prove anything to anyone else. It's all about you. Something might be holding you back or stopping yourself from doing something. And you just want to try it. You don't have to be fearless. You just have to be willing to try. So what do you say? I asked you earlier to write down one thing that you would love to try to do that would be a little bit outside your comfort zone. What are you going to do this summer? I want you to do it with me. I think it would be really fun. It's something personal. You don't need to tell anyone about it. Just try to do something a little bit braver for yourself. And then I just want you to see how you feel. It's really cool when you do something brave afterwards. You're like, oh my gosh, that wasn't so bad. And you feel so proud of yourself. It's crazy. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if this episode was helpful, I would be so grateful if you would share it with a friend through text, through Instagram, share it on your stories. The more women that know about this podcast, the more women that I can help and that I can reach. And I just want to help women feel good inside themselves and know that they are worth it. So I would be so grateful if you would share this episode. And another thing, if you could go over to iTunes and rate and review the podcast, it literally takes two seconds to do I would be so grateful that helps me grow as well and this podcast is totally free I don't make any income on this it is just something that I'm super passionate about and I would love for it to be something that helps women each and every day and the only way I can do that is if that you share these podcast episodes or if you go over and rate and review the podcast I would be so grateful so I'm going to end this episode like I do each and every episode with an affirmation to take you on your day and And that affirmation is I am willing to grow even when it feels uncomfortable. So go out there, chase that comfort zone, get away from it and do something brave. Okay, I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you on next week's episode.