Comfort bubble? What the heck?

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Someone once told me (my old trumpet techer I think) that I needed to come out of my comfort bubble or comfort zone or something like that.

What on earth was he talking about?

Ive had that thrown in my face from several people as well. I think he meant that you should stop doing the things you normally do that make you feel safe, and try doing stuff where you dont neccesarily feel so safe. I never stepped out of my own comfort zone tho, not much anyway. I think its a really weird thing to say. Who would like doing things that arent nice, or that feels remotely safe?

He meant that he thinks that you stick to only doing things that you are comfortable doing, and that he wants you to start doing things that you might not be comfortable with and/or might not find easy.

He may of course be totally wrong.

I also once had someone describe me as "unwilling to leave my comfort zone" because I kept having trouble doing something. She kept telling me that I was just comfortable with having problems so I didn't want to experience not having them. Of course, the real problem was that I just didn't know how to do what was expected, and once I did learn how to do it I was fine with it, so she was totally off-base with her comments (which were actually pretty insulting).

Greyhound, i've been told that on the face a couple of times. But this was for totally different reasons compared to the responses u've received. Staying put in your comfort zone can be perceived as one taking things for granted, as in when someone is just comfortable with the way things are, content, doesn't want to change anything, in neither the situation nor in himself/herself....
It could be associated to not wanting to step in the other person's shoes, not understanding their emotions, not responding to problems in a way one is expected to, or generically also not making an extra effort to do something, in a nutshell, i would again use the phrase 'taking things for granted'! Perhaps my explanation comes from the relation it has to my life, and why i have had to hear these things, but I dont mean to offend you in any way as i really dont know the person you are.

Stepping out of your comfort zone means taking the (sensible) risk to explore new activities, attitudes, places, relationships, being willing to sacrifice some of the safe feeling and venture into new experiences that you may gain a lot from and if so will become one day your (expanded) comfort zone. Example: talking to someone in a language that is not your own, where you make mistake and feel unsure, but gain fluency with time, so you've gained a new, expanded comfort zone.

It's how you learn new things. Unfortunately for me I keep being a social ret*d. Where this has helped me is in going to jobs in my trade that involve doing new things. Because I don't forget embarrassing myself ever, there are things that I have learned that I just won't forget. Furthermore at this point I have developed an associative memory relative to my trade that makes it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel for new tasks just based on principles of pattern recognition. Just be ready to fall on your face once in a while. When you get past the point of realizing what you don't know, and start becoming a go to guy for info, then you'll be able to put the obsequious brownies in their place with little or no effort. Of course my job is not the typical AS geek job.

Thanks everyone.

I think he might have been referring to the fact that I kept forgetting to practice.

The reasons for lack of practice:
- I kept forgetting (bad memory)
- Poor time management (I always thought I had plenty of time left in the week to do it, but the week was over before I realised it)
- And the worst: tics/compulsions (sometimes I physically could not start to blow the trumpet because I had 'activity-specific' tics - in this case vicious cycles of licking my lips, licking and sucking the mouthpiece, breathing tics and other tics. This happened every time I tried to start a piece and sometimes in the middle of a piece (after musical rests). The longest it could take was five minutes. This always happened at home, but only once happened in a lesson which was good, but if I'd have tried to explain it, it would have been met with disbelief )