Let me be honest with you – I had become that person. You know the one I’m talking about. The person who orders the same thing at every restaurant, who takes the same vacation to the same place every year, who says “no” to invitations that might involve meeting new people or trying unfamiliar activities. My comfort zone had shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, and I was perfectly happy there, thank you very much.
The scary part was that I didn’t even realize how small my world had gotten until I really started paying attention. I’d been living in this self-imposed bubble for so long that it felt normal. My routine was predictable, my choices were safe, and there was something comforting about knowing exactly what to expect from every situation. But somewhere along the way, I had lost something important – that sense of adventure, that willingness to take chances, that openness to new experiences that makes life exciting and rich.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember being younger and being much more adventurous. I tried new foods, traveled to unfamiliar places, took on challenges that scared me. But as I got older, something shifted. Maybe it was a few bad experiences, maybe it was the increasing responsibilities of adult life, maybe it was just the natural tendency to become more risk-averse as we get older. Whatever the reason, I found myself increasingly choosing the safe, familiar option over anything that involved uncertainty or the possibility of failure.
The impact was subtle at first, but over time it became really obvious. I was turning down invitations to parties because I might not know many people there. I was avoiding restaurants that served food I couldn’t pronounce. I was sticking to the same workout routine even though I was getting bored with it. I was saying “no” to opportunities for growth at work because they involved learning new skills and stepping outside my comfort zone.
My friends and family started noticing too. “You never want to try anything new anymore,” my sister commented once when I declined her invitation to a Korean restaurant. “You’re so predictable,” a friend teased when I suggested we go to the same beach house we’d been visiting for years. Even I could hear the defensiveness in my responses – “I just know what I like,” or “Why change something that works?”
The wake-up call came during my annual performance review at work. My manager told me that while my performance was solid, she was concerned about my lack of initiative in taking on new challenges or learning new technologies. “You’re doing great work,” she said, “but I think you have more potential than you’re tapping into. I’d love to see you stretch yourself a bit more.”
That conversation stuck with me. I realized that my fear of trying new things wasn’t just affecting my personal life – it was holding me back professionally too. I was playing it safe at work, sticking to what I already knew how to do, avoiding opportunities that might involve risk or the possibility of not succeeding immediately. I was stagnant, and I didn’t like that realization one bit.
Around the same time, I bought a new baseball video game on a whim. I had always been a casual baseball fan, but I hadn’t really played many sports games. This particular game was different though – it had all these features and gameplay modes that were completely new to me. There were dynasty modes, online multiplayer, player creation tools, all kinds of things I’d never experienced in a sports game before.
When I first started playing, I immediately gravitated toward what was familiar – the basic exhibition mode where I could just play a single game with standard teams. It was safe, it was predictable, and I knew what to expect. But as I played more, I started getting curious about these other game modes that I was avoiding.
One evening, I was feeling particularly bored with my usual gaming routine, so I decided to try something different. I clicked on the franchise mode, where you have to manage an entire team over multiple seasons – making trades, developing players, handling finances, all that complex stuff. I was immediately overwhelmed. There were so many menus, so many decisions to make, so many systems I didn’t understand.
My first instinct was to quit and go back to the simple exhibition games I was comfortable with. But something made me pause – maybe it was the recent conversation with my manager, maybe it was just curiosity. I decided to give it a try, even though I was sure I would fail at it.
And honestly, at first, I did fail. I made terrible trades, mismanaged my team finances, struggled with the player development system. My virtual baseball team was a disaster, and I felt frustrated and incompetent. But unlike in real life, where failure felt final and embarrassing, in the game, failure was just part of the learning process.
What was different about trying new things in the game was that the stakes felt lower. If I made a mistake, I could learn from it and try again. If I didn’t understand something, I could experiment until I figured it out. There was no real-world consequence for not being immediately good at something.
Slowly but surely, I started getting better at the franchise mode. I learned the mechanics, developed strategies, improved my decision-making. And as I got more comfortable with trying new things in the game, I started noticing something interesting – I was enjoying the challenge of learning and improving more than I enjoyed staying in my comfort zone.
The sense of accomplishment I got from mastering something new in the game was so much more satisfying than the comfortable familiarity of doing what I already knew. Each time I figured out a new feature or overcame a challenge, I felt this boost of confidence that started spilling over into other areas of my life.
I started applying this “gaming mindset” to real-life situations. When my sister invited me to that Korean restaurant again, instead of immediately declining, I thought about how I had approached the unfamiliar game modes – with curiosity and a willingness to learn. I went to the restaurant, tried some new dishes, and you know what? I discovered that I actually really liked Korean food.
When my manager suggested I take on a project involving a new technology I wasn’t familiar with, instead of panicking about not being an expert immediately, I approached it like I had approached the franchise mode – with the understanding that there would be a learning curve, that I would make mistakes, but that I could figure it out with time and practice.
The games helped me reframe my relationship with trying new things. Instead of seeing unfamiliar situations as threats to my comfort and competence, I started seeing them as opportunities to learn and grow. The fear didn’t completely go away, but it stopped being this paralyzing force that held me back.
I started small – trying new restaurants, taking different routes to work, accepting social invitations I would have previously declined. Each time I tried something new and survived (and often even enjoyed it), my confidence grew. I built momentum, and gradually I started taking on bigger challenges – learning a new language, taking a cooking class, even traveling to a country I’d never visited before.
What was really transformative was realizing that the fear I had been experiencing wasn’t really about trying new things – it was about the possibility of failure or embarrassment. The games helped me understand that failure isn’t the end of the world, that it’s actually a necessary part of learning and growing. In baseball games, you lose way more games than you win, but each loss teaches you something that helps you get better.
These days, I’m definitely not this fearless adventurer who tries every new thing that comes along. But I’m so much more open to new experiences than I used to be. I say “yes” more often than “no,” I approach unfamiliar situations with curiosity rather than fear, and I’m willing to be a beginner and make mistakes as part of the learning process.
I still play baseball games regularly, and they continue to teach me about trying new things. Every time a new version comes out with updated features, or I discover a new game mode I haven’t tried before, I’m reminded of that initial breakthrough – the realization that stepping outside my comfort zone, while scary at first, is where the real growth and excitement happen.
The experience taught me that our comfort zones are meant to be expanded, not just lived in forever. Trying new things – whether it’s a new video game mode, a new restaurant, or a new professional challenge – keeps life interesting, keeps us growing, and opens up possibilities we might never have discovered otherwise.
Sometimes the biggest changes in our lives start from the smallest shifts in perspective. For me, that shift began with deciding to try a new feature in a baseball video game, and it ended up transforming my relationship with new experiences in every area of my life. Life is too short to stay in the same safe place forever, and I’m grateful that baseball games helped me find the courage to explore beyond my comfort zone.
