Are You 'Institutionalized' To Your Comfort Zone?

My all-time favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. If you are unfamiliar with the story, Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is wrongfully imprisoned and ends up becoming the warden’s go-to guy in money laundering scams. While inside, Dufresne becomes friends with another inmate known as “Red” (Freeman).

As the story progresses, each man’s sentence draws on for years. A prisoner by the name of Brooks, played by James Whitmore, is released to the free world after serving a 50-year sentence. But since he has become so used to his surroundings and life inside these prison walls, he cannot adjust to “life on the outside” and takes his own life. Upon news of Brooks’ suicide, Red brings up the term “institutionalized,” meaning Brooks came to depend on the surroundings of the prison because that’s all he knew. Life on the outside was too hard, too different, and too uncomfortable.

Red also faces the fate of institutionalization as his life sentence drags on. Andy, on the other hand, hangs on to the hope that one day he’ll breathe free air again. He refuses to let an imprisoned existence transform his mindset and never gets so comfortable with his surroundings that he comes to depend on them.

I’ll stop there because, if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption, I don’t want to ruin the ending...and highly recommend you watch it today! J

But this story walks a very fine line to our every day lives. We become slaves to our comfort zone, and we force ourselves to stay within that comfort zone because it’s safe, it’s familiar, and it’s comfortable.

Your comfort zone is a self-defined boundary that keeps you in a position that never changes. You become to rely on the things that take place so much, they come naturally.

Your paycheck is the ultimate example. If you’re getting one, you see no need to branch outside of this zone because the money’s going to come in. You don’t want to “rock the boat,” so to speak.

But what if something came along that allowed you to generate income, on your own terms, by working a home-based business without having to answer to a boss? Chances are, you’ve seen or read about opportunities such as these, but partaking in such a proclamation would require a vacation from the comfort zone you hold so tightly.

Life is all about change and improvement. And if you “institutionalize” yourself to a comfort zone, you dismiss any chance to improve your situation. All you’ll have is the lingering question of “What if?” What if I would’ve taken that chance? What if I would’ve tried that? What if I had the foresight to take a chance?

Being an entrepreneur in the network marketing industry requires a strong mindset that forces you to conquer limitations. The most successful networkers in the world are willing to dive in head-first, as opposed to dipping a toe to test the waters.

This applies to all aspects of life as well. If you’re not willing to dive in head-first, you’ll never be able to experience the possibility of change. If you just dip a toe, you give your mind too much time to talk you out of something that could be huge.

If you ever look at a network marketing opportunity, weigh the pros and cons, see yourself being successful, then do a complete 180 and say “I don’t see how I can make this work for me,” consider yourself institutionalized.

Because you’ve come to depend on the walls that define your life so much, that hanging a new painting on that wall will move you too far from what you’ve conceived as reality.

Successful people in this world VISUALIZE their future, make a mental blueprint of that future, literally see themselves living that lifestyle, and then take every step necessary to make that vision of their future a reality.

And what separates these people from the comfort zone dwellers is their ability to shatter any limitation that gets thrown at them. They refuse to become institutionalized. They never give up on the lifestyle they want. They see their future, and they make it come to life.

So ask yourself: Are you institutionalized to your comfort zone? Or are you ready to leap passed the boundaries that have held you in place for so long and start building the future you’ve always desired?