As a motivation keynote speaker, I often talk about comfort zones. In fact, along with achieving goals, comfort zones represent one of my favorite topics to speak about. When you hear or see the term 'comfort zone', one can easily visualize a very comfortable sofa in your living room. It's another way of saying that we can easily get too set in our own usual ways and never venture into unknown or uncomfortable territory. So a comfort zone can be viewed as your present way of doing things in any area of your life. Not much motivation there.

The result of staying within a present comfort zone is that achieving goals can get postponed indefinitely, because it requires you to leave your comfort zone to acquire greater or new skills. This has happened to most of us at some time or another. There is sometimes a fear of leaving a comfort zone and a common example is with public speaking, which is considered a frightful experience for many people. The comfort zone in this case is staying seated in the audience rather than being up in front as the motivation keynote speaker at center stage.

In order to achieve our goals, we have to get a little bit uncomfortable to push beyond those cushy comfort zones. We have to get off that comfortable sofa, roll up our sleeves and get to work. This is exactly what I did with martial arts. When I started out in martial arts, there were many techniques and moves that I was not comfortable doing since they were so new to me. But I slowly pushed myself to expand my comfort zone each time I trained. I didn’t try to learn too much at a time. Instead, I made small steps to progress steadily. Over time, the techniques became easier as my comfort zone with them had expanded.

One of the most interesting things I learned from this entire process with martial arts is that if you expand one of your own comfort zones in one area of life, you can then attack all other areas of life with the same confidence and the same vigor. That's what happened with me. I expanded my comfort zones in martial arts. The confidence built up as a result allowed me to improve other areas of my life. Some examples were career, dating, as well as other sports like skiing as I expanded my comfort zones in those areas too. It was this same confidence that allowed me to become a motivation keynote speaker, something that I would never have imagined myself as twenty years ago. As you start becoming successful, expanding comfort zones becomes contagious. It’s a good infection to have. How's that for motivation?

Just imagine what you would be able to accomplish in a year’s time, whether for your health, professional or personal life, if you were to get just a little bit uncomfortable and expand your comfort zone by just a little bit at a time. I call this a ten percent comfort zone expansion in my book, The Life Champion In You. It's totally astonishing when we realize what can be achieved over time if we actively work on something to achieve our goals every single week. It's sort of like making the effort to put away a little bit of money each week. Over time, a nice chunk of cash will have accumulated. This similar type of pattern can be realized for almost any goal you have as long as you expand your comfort zone.

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author and martial arts karate world champion. His book, "The Life Champion In You", is about how to overcome challenges and achieve life success. It is one man's journey from personal tragedy to becoming a karate world champion. More information about his speaking programs, books, videos, articles on motivation and success can be found at www.clintcora.com