Good morning, afternoon, or evening to all my wonderful readers.
Today, I want to discuss breaking out of your comfort zone.
This is an important topic that applies to each and everyone of us whether you’re here as a reader, author, artist, or human ;).
We all have lines we draw, boundaries we set, and people we avoid for our own comfort.
Most of these boundaries are important.
They keep us safe, protect our emotions, and allow us to assert ourselves in situations that threaten our well being.
That being said, we sometimes set boundaries used to protect feelings that don’t need protecting, or we set boundaries that are limitations.
You can’t be disappointed to have fallen short of a goal you never set for yourself.
Let me explain.
Oftentimes over the years, I limited myself, or told myself I couldn’t do certain things for my own well being, when the reality was that I was worried about facing criticism.
I finally put on my big girl pants and put my feelings to the side (mostly).
How did I do this?
Well, I opened myself up to criticism and published a book, and then another.
Sometimes, the reception wasn’t what I had been hoping for. I’m an emotional ass writer for God’s sake!
For every bad review there were numerous good ones, still, the negative ones overshadowed these.
When that would happen I would often regret taking that step out of my comfort zone.
Over time, I would like to say I can more easily cast my feelings to the side, but that would be a lie.
However, I will say this, I don’t regret getting my stories out there.
When they reach the right audience they harbor the potential to tear a reader apart, only to slowly rebuild them. My characters and story were cathartic for myself and many readers, and that has to be enough.
My message to you, step out of that comfort zone, accept constructive criticism, and fuck those haters, (not literally).
Lots of love- M.Day.Kendall