Comfortably leaving your Comfort Zone

We often hear advice such as "do something that scares you every day" or that "growth begins where comfort ends".
This automatically conjures images of jumping out of perfectly functioning airplanes and plummeting to the earth, cheeks flapping wildly until at the last possible minute, the chute popping open and it is a happy, conquering, float back to earth. You land and rip off your goggles knowing you are now fearless...really? Is that what actually needs to happen?
We have a tendency to assume that leaving our comfort zone requires monumental risk.... it doesn’t.
Don’t discount the value of incremental change- incremental discomfort.

By Rob Chandler [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

You don’t need to jump out of a plane feel discomfort, move through it, and expand your comfort zone. It can be as easy as taking a different route to work, trying something new for lunch, or thanking someone by name the next time you make a purchase. These could be just as terrifying as jumping out a plane for some individuals, and that’s ok. I have jumped out of an airplane, rappelled out of helicopters, and been surrounded by sharks in cage- no big deal. But I am incredibly uncomfortable and terrible with greeting people and "small talk". I have been told I am standoffish, mean, even arrogant...all because I am incredibly uncomfortable saying "good morning". Its weird I know, but conquering a simple greeting to me is pushing out of my comfort zone.
Then again just putting something out here on Steem is not exactly comforting either. When trying to write something that adds value to others, I am learning far more about how little I do know rather than how much I have to contribute- and that makes me uncomfortable.

So here I am, finishing this post, knowing I will look back at in total embarrassment as a write and learn more, however I know that this current discomfort wont suck as much next time, and the time after that...and then one day maybe I can say I have added value, that I have done something to help someone out.
That makes a little discomfort worth it.