WHAT I'VE LEARNED WHEN I LEFT MY COMFORT ZONE

"Do one thing that scares you every day"

I'm pretty sure you've heard this famous quote about two million times in your life. I did too, but I never truly realized the meaning of it up until recently.

My trip to Italy last May changed quite a lot in my life not only in a way that I got to see some truly amazingly beautiful places, but more in the way that I grew up a bit in a way I didn't expected before going on this road trip. How, you may ask, and this would be a very good question. It took some time for me to figure this out as well, to be honest. In fact, I am not entirely sure that the trip itself was the one thing that inspired the change, but I like to think so after all, that‘s quite a beautiful mark to remember. 

The thing was that on this road trip I went with my family and two of family friends and so it happened to be that I was the only one who could speak proper English so I had plenty of responsibilities to make sure everything went smoothly with our trip. I got to find hotels while speaking on the phone, talk with policemen in the middle of the road, make our reservations, check in, check out, buy things and honestly I was mainly the one that did all the talking on that trip and it was very strange when 4 adults were confident enough in me to do this.

It probably doesn't really sound clear enough, so let me back you up a little bit. Before this trip I was the person who disliked speaking to people I don‘t know, meaning in the street, in the bank, hospital, post office and don't even get me started on talking on the phone. For some (or most) it probably sounds very very strange, because why on earth would you be scared of that, really? Why would you be afraid of speaking with someone you won‘t ever see ever again? Well, I don‘t really know the answer to this myself but I was very shy about doing this. You would never tell that I'm shy in any way with people I know at least a little bit, not even close but for some reason people I don't actually know didn't seem inviting at all to me.
 So when I was on that trip and I saw how well things went on and that people were actually able to understand me and it wasn't all that scary and moreover it was in a foreign language (!), I suddenly became much more confident to do this and I was very proud of myself for doing these things. So while I was there I decided that I don‘t want to ever let go of this and I want to keep doing this thing even when I get back home, even if that would be scary.Because they definitely were going to be scary to me. So I made myself a promise and up until know I am keeping it to myself.

We have this program in my Uni were older students get to help and guide freshmans into the university life, it‘s like they become their mentors. I wanted to do this for a long time but never though I could actually be able to do this. But even though I was terrified, I applied for it and thankfully, I got the position of being the mentor for freshmans. And this has honestly been one of the best decisions of my life. Everyone likes to be needed and I honestly really enjoy helping people whenever I can, so this was quite an amazing place for me to be at. I have been doing this from the middle of July up until now. But honestly not the part of helping them was [and still is] the best part, the thing is that I got to meet a lot of other mentors and many many freshmans which is very exciting, indeed, but for me was also very challenging at times. It‘s really hard to explain how much it means to me that I actually met all these people and some of them really became my friends and I needed to talk to them, so day after day my fear kept on getting smaller and smaller. I also had to talk to authorities, to professors, to many people I have never even met and you know what? I did perfectly fine.

 I can't say that I am not scared of talking to people anymore, there are some moments when I would rather run away than approach someone but it‘s so so much easier to me than before. Now I can speak on the phone, talk to baristas in coffee shops, come up to someone and ask whatever that is that I need. And man, it feels amazing. Absolutely amazing. It's so freeing to know that you don't need anyone else to do something for you, that you are perfectly capable to approach a person you don't know and ask what you need. Now I'm actually enjoying when people come up to me on the street and ask for the road because that's one more accomplishment to me in this learning process.

And you know, I believe that we grow up this way, by doing even the smallest things, by changing something about ourselves which is no longer serving us. I realized I didn't want to be that person anymore who is afraid of speaking up, of speaking with someone I don't know and I am very glad to say that I learned so much. And I also learned that if you come up to someone smiling and talk politely and nicely, people mostly are really nice to you as well. And if they aren't, well, that's probably the lesson they still haven't learned themselves and it is not your problem to deal with. But one thing you can do is to let yourself grow day after day and surprise yourself every by accomplishing even the smallest goals.