Out of the Comfort Zone

If you are on the path of Personal Growth, you must remember the obvious. This path entails Growth. That means that you will be stretching. You will be stepping into uncharted territory, at least for you. To put it bluntly, you will be required to do things you've not done before or at least doing things in a different way than you are accustomed.


What this means is that to grow you must step out of what is currently your comfort zone. Any time you do this, you will likely make mistakes, or at the very least, you may feel a bit awkward. This is normal and nothing unusual.


As you already know, it is my purpose to grow and to share with others what I have learned through my blog, my books, and my pages on Facebook. My journey actually began long before this. I have spent many years reading and studying the best sources I could find.


I knew I had much to learn and I continued to persevere in my studies until results to my liking began to emerge. It was a struggle, for sure. I came from a difficult past. In my faith, I grew until my circumstances began to change, and the change became increasingly rapid.


Soon a part of me knew it was time to begin expressing my perspective of this journey of life in a way that others would find helpful by applying these concepts in their own lives. I chose to do so using the medium of Facebook.


At the time, I knew next to nothing about this technology, but I went ahead and opened my personal page. As I became more comfortable with my ability to navigate, I began to reach out to others of like mind.


Mind you I really didn't know exactly what I was doing when I began, but it felt right. My own learning curve was accelerating rapidly by this time, and I knew I was doing the right thing. Was I comfortable with what I was doing? No. Looking back today, was it worth it? YES!


Less than one year ago I had only a dozen or so "friends" on Facebook. I had heard about blogging, but wasn't sure I was up to putting in the effort required to maintain a blog up to date. I looked inside myself and found the answer that I was not so sure I wanted to hear. I began my blog.


It actually took a couple of months before I saw any real results from what I felt was a Herculean effort on my part. Was I outside of my own comfort zone? Yes. Was it worth it? YES!


I had one book that I had previously published and it was selling pretty well. This was Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way. An unexpected benefit from my blogging and my Facebook encounters is that people that had not known about this book began asking about it and orders suddenly increased.


I am proud of my book, Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way; however, the topic of my blog is slightly different. It is more about developing your mindset to dream and to go after those dreams. Goal-setting and prosperity consciousness.


From this recognition, I wrote a second book by the same title as my blog, Manifest By Design Now. I chose to write this book rather quickly and get it out there as soon as I possibly could, because I knew there were many who were interested in and could benefit from this information. I was also learning that what Joe Vitale said in The Secret was true: The Universe likes speed.


Was I comfortable writing and releasing a book this quickly? No. Was it worth it? YES! I decided to be up front about this book and explain that it was actually only the essence of what I saw as the complete version. I offered it with the request that those who would read it would also offer me feedback, comments, and suggestions that I may use to improve the book with time.


I've been extremely pleased with the responses I've gotten. I've made several changes to the book since then. I've expanded on a few of the concepts to be clearer and added some points. This book is like a living book that just keeps getting better! I still plan on getting it published some time in 2011, and welcome any further feedback on the downloadable version.


More recently my journey has led me to even greater personal challenges. Perhaps you've seen a few of the videos I've been releasing on Facebook. I have a confession to make about this. But first let me give you a little background on where I am coming from.


I know this material very well. Not just from reading, listening to audios and watching videos and webinars, but I've been practicing these ideas with pretty decent success for some time. I also have years of experience in teaching and giving seminars to groups of people.


When I decided I wanted to create some videos, I didn't realize how different it was going to be talking to a camera rather than to real people in front of me. I found this extremely challenging for me. I am very aware that my camera presence needed (and still needs) a lot of work.


Now I could have just held off on putting the videos out there for the world to see how amateurish my first videos were. But, I believe in what I teach. I have often compared growing yourself to a child's learning to walk. They fall down a lot, but this doesn't faze them. They simply get back up again and go. So I let the world witness my struggle. I'm still having a challenging time, but I do feel better about each new video.


I guess what I'd like to say with all this rambling is that I am sincere in my message to you. What I teach is real. I am 100% confident that you can achieve ANYTHING you set your mind to do, if you approach it with the right attitude. This means focus, and this means persistence. It may take some time, but really who cares? The time is going to pass anyway. You may as well be doing something worthwhile and if you do, you can know that success awaits you, whatever success means to you.


YOU are the reason I do what I do. I owe you everything my friends. Thank you for following my blog, and please if you enjoy it take the time to click the icon to share it on your facebook page for others to see it as well. Even the videos I'll be creating every week or so. Thank you.



I want YOU to succeed!!



Jeffrey Brandt

Author of Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way.






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