The phrase 'getting out of your comfort zone' has always felt very natural in the way I have lived my life up to and including right now. My normal way of being has always been looking at obstacles with an "I'm sure I could work that out" attitude. This flows through my photography work and gigs I take on, my career as a software developer and even way back when while I worked in camera retail. My love of learning has always helped with the push outside of the comfort zone and it's got me where I am today.
I love hearing people talk about new things they're trying because it's an admission of being outside of the comfort zone. Trying a new hobby, a new business, making content online. I know people who have done all of these things and I always want to give people the space to talk about their things as much as they want. Being comfortable with being bad at something new is a huge power that helps push away the urge to stop doing it because you're not immediately good at it.
Another way I usually end up out of my comfort zone is by biting off a little more than I can chew and coming back to that "I can work this out" mentality. There is no better example of that than my career as a software engineer, during my time at different companies I love taking on projects that might be outside of my on paper experience. Outside of my day to day of writing software I have also:
Filmed, edited and published tutorial videos
Hosted fireside chats among developers across different teams
Hosted end of year events
Filmed, edited and published case study videos
Created storyboards used for case study video productions
Taken company wide employee portraits
Taken leadership team portraits and group images
Filmed myself to be used in a recruitment drive video
All the above examples while loosely inside skill sets I already had were usually way bigger scales of projects than I was used to doing. Almost all of these project were me pushing to do them knowing I could work it out, the ones I agreed to do were almost always agreed too without much thought past 'that sounds fun'. Before the start of each of the projects I was extremely nervous but as soon as the rubber hits the road I have a great time and they have all turned out really well. If I was determined to stay in my comfort zone I would not have been part of any of those things and to be quote honest I would probably be bored.
This is also an interesting place to be now in 2026 with the rise and rise of AI doing more things across the workforce. More and more tools claiming to be able to 'replace X' or 'never have to think of Y again' means being in your comfort zone puts you in very real danger of being replaceable or at least perceived as such. Being curios, experimental, and having interests and skills outside of your day to day provides a level of power and confidence in the quite frankly daily changes that come up due to technology.
One of the biggest benefits I have found from talking about things you're doing or want to be doing is that people then think of you when something appropriate comes up. Just this month for example I photographed an event for Process Sydney. The organiser reached out because I have spoken to her at a few of the events and she knows I am a photographer as well as my day job as a software developer. On the day, one of the speakers had their videographer pull out who was going to film their talk, we came up with a solution on the day and we managed to get stills and a solid video as well. The week after the event someone saw an Instagram story of me editing the photos and reached out about an event they we're doing which I will be photographing in December now. This person again I have met only once but the circles of interest overlap and here we are.
If you've made it this far you're already in one of my biggest pushes outside of a comfort zone in committing myself to publish more writing. It all started at the end of 2024 when I put on threads a list of things I wanted to do in 2025 and more writing was one of them which brought on the monthly Retrospective. At the end of 2025 I doubled down and added this mid month thought writing piece in between retrospectives. In the space of nearly 2 years I have gone from talking about wanting to write more and having six pieces written between 2022 and 2025. Now as of this post we have forty one blogposts since January 2025.
So if you're currently standing on the edge of your comfort zone I encourage you to take your first step, who knows where it will lead.
