Getting out of my comfort zone

Not sure if people know this about me, but I’m a total home body. I work from home, I workout at home and well, home is my happy place. It’s my comfort zone. Given the opportunity, I’d much rather stay in for the night than go out on the town. I had my fair share of that life before I got married and had kids.

Big crowds, especially where I don’t know many people, makes me uncomfortable. but on the other hand, I sometimes find myself having a little bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) and wanting to be at these places.  I tend to just opt out of going!  I know for a fact I’m definitely not an extrovert but I don’t think I’m a TOTAL introvert either.  Having said that though…I know I need to get out of my comfort zone more.

The invitation

I got a message on Sunday evening about attending a local charity event where there would be a few hundred people. My heart sank a bit. Remember, I don’t particularly like large crowds where I don’t know very many people. But there was a big reason for me to go that I’ll go into detail in another another post, so I knew I should go. But honestly, I kinda had this huge pit in my stomach about it. I definitely didn’t want to go alone.

I messaged a few friends to find out if they would be going.  One couldn’t go, one was a maybe and the other was already attending and sitting with a table of people. So while I knew there would be I knew would be there, I wasn’t confident about this whole situation. To kinda make it even more uncomfortable…this was a dinner event and no dinner tickets were availalbe. So what the heck was I supposed to do while everyone else was eating?  I wasn’t feeling good about this at all!

But I got out of my comfort zone anyway.

I reserved my ticket and told my family I had plans for the night. (they probably thought I was out of my mind…because I hardly ever leave my house except to go grocery shopping and school pickup) Tuesday afternoon came around and I found out that my friend that was planning to go, couldn’t be there after all…so I was seriously on my own for the night.  At least til I got there and maybe found someone to hang with. I contemplated not going or arriving super late…but my hubby encouraged me to just go and get there on time!  So I got there a little after 6:30PM.

Me not feeling confident at all about walking into a room of 300 people.

I’m not kidding when I say I was petrified walking in. Peeking into the ball room, all I saw was a sea of unfamiliar faces.  Granted, while I was standing in line, I did see a mom I knew walking by but it was a casual “hey how have you been” hug  and then she was gone. I didn’t see her again the whole night. As I walked in, I only recognized one person, my neighbor Mary who was working the check in area.

Wandering aimlessly around

So now what? Everyone was sitting down at their respective tables eating dinner and socializing. I felt like a fish out of water. This was legit the first big social event I have been to in a couple years probably. And remember, I don’t have a dinner ticket and wasn’t meeting anyone there so I decided to go look at the raffle items and buy some tickets. Saw one other person I knew passing by in the cluster of people said hi and then she was gone. After wandering around the prize tables I decided to go to the back of the room and find the friend who invited me to the event. She is one of the coordinators of the event.  But that wasn’t before I sent this text to my husband…

Shortly after this text, I did find my friend and she pointed me in the direction of a table to sit where I knew someone.  Thank goodness or might have walked right out the back door.

The reason I went in the first place

In the end, I’m extremely happy I stepped out of my comfort zone and went to that event. Not only did I end up having a nice time (I still would have preferred to have dinner) but I wouldn’t be the one who nominated my friend to become the next Helping One Woman recipient for November. And so who knows if she would have ended up being selected.  I guess we’ll never know.  So all I can say is stepping outside my comfort zone paid off!  I’ll share more about the HOW event and all that will going into that in another post.

Until then…

xo

Day 14 of 100 days of blogging.