The Leadership Lie that Fuels Anxiety (and how to fix it)

Rethinking comfort zones: where real growth happens

“Step out of your comfort zone.”
“Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

You’ve heard it in keynotes, on LinkedIn, maybe even said it yourself.
It’s catchy. It sounds bold. It looks great on a slide.

And it’s wrong.

This slogan has done real damage in leadership culture. It convinces people that comfort is weakness - that to grow, you must abandon safety. It turns comfort into the enemy, when in fact comfort is the nervous system’s signal of safety. And safety isn’t weakness. Safety is the foundation of growth.

The real enemy isn’t comfort.
👉 The real enemy is avoidance.

🔹 Comfort Isn’t the Problem

Here’s the misunderstanding. We’ve collapsed two different things into one word:

• Being comfortable = ease, convenience, slippers-and-Netflix. Lovely for recovery, but it won’t grow you.

• Comfort (real) = steadiness. Nervous system safety. The inner ground you can carry with you into uncertainty.

Leaders have been taught to fear comfort, but humans don’t grow in panic. We grow when we feel safe enough to stretch.

This is backed by decades of research:

• The Yerkes–Dodson law shows performance peaks at moderate arousal - not at zero stretch, and not at maximum stress [Yerkes & Dodson, 1908].

• Flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) confirms growth happens when challenge and skill are balanced - high enough to engage, not so high you drown.

👉 Growth lives where safety and stretch meet.

🔹 The False Path: “Discomfort = Growth”

Leadership culture has overcorrected. We glorify overwork as if endurance were strength. We mistake numbness for resilience - as if a thick skin makes you a better leader, when really it just makes you less aware.

But discomfort for its own sake doesn’t grow you - it depletes you.
Push people too far, too fast, and they don’t expand, they shut down. That’s not growth. That’s trauma.

Clinical psychology says the same. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) identifies experiential avoidance - the desperate attempt to dodge discomfort - as a root cause of distress [Hayes et al., 1999]. And ironically, the more leaders are forced into raw discomfort without inner safety, the more avoidance they build later.

What we need instead is permission to expand comfort - to build inner safety so we can step into the unknown present, not numb.

🔹 The Sofa Growth Model

Think of your comfort zone as a sofa.

• Competence → You’re steady on your sofa in the familiar room. You know how to operate here.

• Growth → You move the sofa further out. Risky at first, but each move expands what feels possible.

• Leadership → You realise you don’t need the sofa at all. Comfort is no longer external - it’s internal. A superpower.

👉 Growth isn’t leaving the comfort zone. It’s expanding it - until you carry comfort with you wherever you go.

🔹 Why This Matters

McKinsey is right: psychological safety fuels performance [McKinsey, 2021]. But they focus on the external climate. What’s missing is the internal climate: your ability to regulate your own nervous system and carry safety with you.

• External safety without internal → you still freeze.

• Internal safety without external → you shrink, punished by culture.

• Both together → resilience, adaptability, growth.

And here’s the bottom line: internal safety governs you.
If your nervous system screams “danger,” no policy about “speak-up culture” will make you bold.

This is why leaders resist change.
Why talented executives choke in interviews.
Why teams cling to the familiar.

Not because they lack skill - but because they’ve been taught to fear comfort and worship discomfort, instead of recognising that safety is the ground growth stands on.

🔹 The Upgrade

It’s time to retire the lazy slogan:
“Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

Growth begins when you stop avoiding discomfort and start expanding comfort.
When you build inner safety so you can face the unknown without losing yourself.

👉 Growth is adventure, not trauma.
👉 Growth is presence, not panic.
👉 Growth is safety carried into stretch.

That’s how leaders grow without fear.
That’s how organisations adapt without breaking.
That’s how we future-proof in a world that refuses to stay familiar.

✨ Lines for your Fridge Magnet Meme collection by Evelyne Brink

• “Discomfort isn’t the goal. Expansion is.”

• “Growth lives where safety and stretch meet.”

• “Stop confusing comfort with being comfortable. Comfort is safety, and safety is what makes growth possible.”

• “Don’t leave your comfort zone. Expand it - until you don’t need a sofa at all.”

I help CEOs, founders and leaders find their authentic voice, speak confidently on stage, screen and in the room, and live their dream lives.

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