GET COMFORTABLE WITH GETTING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

 Public relations, the media frontier. These are the missions of the course called PRF&P. It’s special 12-class mission. To explore new PR realms. To seek out new perspectives on strategic communications. To boldly take its students where they have not gone before.   

     This parody of the original Star Trek series’ opening can not touch its actual counterpart. But it highlights a central premise of the classic 1960’s sci-fi series; stepping out from familiar areas into the unknown. The same theme defines the PRF&P class.

      You may not be venturing into interstellar space with the Starship Enterprise. But the PRF&P course is taking you to achievement milestones.  You are taking a class by webcam. You are being exposed to cutting-edge concepts. You are regularly blogging, and responding to other students’ blogs. You are revising group project PR pitches.

  And the most ambitious undertakings are looming the horizon; preparing group project PR plans and final presentations.  The PRF&P course isn’t even half over. Yet by now, you realize the theme which runs throughout the class: doing new things.

   That fact underscores the importance of the following saying. Get comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone. I didn’t make it up. I heard it from Dr. Rob Gilbert. He is a sports psychology professor at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ. 

   Gilbert offers free daily motivational messages through his Success Hotline. You can hear his recorded three minute pep talks for free at 973-743-4690.  Three minutes may be short. Yet, Gilbert makes every second count with his spirited insight.

   Getting comfortable getting out of your comfort zone is one of Gilbert’s best tips. Following that advice boosts your chances of success.  Do it and you increase your ability to take career furthering risks. Do it and your fear of failure diminishes. You’ll find it much easier to accept challenges, which paves the way for career progress.

     By taking risks, you’re opening yourself up to more opportunities. If you fail, you still benefit by bolstering your personal and professional growth. As Gilbert had once said, Thomas Edison did not fail 10,000 times before inventing the light bulb. He learned 10,000 ways not to create a light bulb.  

     By getting out of your comfort zone, you’ll embrace, not ignore, chances to enlarge your social and professional network. You’ll welcome, not avoid, unheard ideas and mind-flexing lessons. You’ll enjoy, not dread, doing tasks you never tried before.  And PFR&P hinges on those aspects.

     Consider this. What do you think made Star Trek so appealing? It was the Starship Enterprise crew’s unflinching ability to venture out into the undiscovered.  They met Klingons, Romulans, Gorns, Tholians, and numerous other aliens. The spacefarers discovered planet after planet, civilization after civilization, and star after star. They accomplished all this because the starship’s crew valued initiative over comfort.

      Look at it from the reverse. Would Enterprise would be so legendary if the ship never dared to leave the solar system?  What could Star Trek ever be if Captain Kirk was content to orbit our system’s planets and asteroids? Would the series make history if the Enterprise’s crew cowered at the thought of meeting extraterrestrials?  Perhaps as the 23rd century version of McHale’s Navy.

    Back on present day Earth, there’s one bunch that has been learning the value of leaving its comfort zone.  That’s the students of the Fall 2011 online PRF&P class. They have been gaining a much better understanding of public relations. That is due altogether to the students’ willingness to go what they never have gone before. And you know why that is so special?  We don’t have to wait for the 23rd century to see an enterprising group reaching for the stars.