The Benefits of Stepping out of your Comfort Zone While Living Abroad

Leaving the comforts of home behind and focusing on new professional challenges in a foreign country is an incredible opportunity for personal growth. Living abroad is an effective way to develop life skills that will make you a more open, adventurous, and patient person. In a foreign setting, navigating a new city and culture, you learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You also realize that often it’s best not to try to control a situation, you have to accept what’s happening and move forward with as positive an attitude as possible.

Getting out of your comfort zone can be scary, but it's for the best, and here's why:

1. You’ll become bolder in the office.

Once you become less inhibited by the world around you, you’ll naturally start saying “yes” more often in professional environments. The adventurous side you’ve cultivated while living in a foreign country will make you a professional who’s willing to take risks and open to new ideas. Living and working abroad forces you to take on new challenges, so once you get back home, you'll feel more comfortable taking on professional ones!

2. You’ll master fake it til you make it.

When you’re abroad and trying your best to calmly and effectively speak a foreign language or navigate a new culture, it’s necessary to fight your natural inhibitions. Interacting with an unknown culture is scary – especially in a foreign language. In all likelihood, you’ll never quite conquer this fear, but you will get used to it and develop the ability to appear cool and collected even when you’re not. This mastery of ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’ can be useful in professional and personal social situations, like presentations, dates, meetings, and interviews.

3. You’ll learn to make the most of what you have.

You can’t bring “home” with you when you intern abroad, meaning you’ll leave behind the people, places, and things that make you feel safe. Having to leave all the comforts of home makes the experience even scarier, but that’s a good thing. Dealing with not having your normal life at your fingertips is a great way to learn how to focus on making the best out of what you have, making you a more positive, independent, and self-sufficient person.

Our interns in Tokyo, Japan.

4. You’ll be more confident and open to new experiences.

An experience, like living abroad, that forces you to leave your comfort zone daily makes the fear of being in a new place, being different, and not understanding the world around you completely normal. Adjusting to this feeling will make you more comfortable with unknown experiences. Regularly getting through situations that make you uncomfortable will make you confident in your ability to navigate the unknown, and handle yourself in unpredictable situations.

5. You’ll boost your creativity.

An openness to new cultural experiences paves the way to a richer creative, innovative mind. Research in 2012 concluded that students who studied abroad were more creative because of the multicultural experience. Being able to think outside the box and creatively, by having lived and worked in a different cultural context, will make you a more attractive professional when looking for a job.

6. You’ll be more adaptable.

When you’re stepping outside of your comfort zone, you’re deciding to sacrifice a little comfort to grow, learn something new, or do something different. The ability to adjust to new environments, people, and things is like a muscle. With more practice and more experience of being outside your comfort zone, you grow to be even more adaptable and capable of navigating uncharted territory - this will be especially beneficial when entering the full-time workforce.

7. Your overall confidence will soar.

Having left the cultural surroundings that made you feel safe and in control, and learning how to deal with new people and problems will make you more confident in life. It’s not easy to make a foreign place your home, learning how to do so will make you realize how much you are capable of as long as you’re willing to feel a little discomfort along the way. Now you've done this, you can do anything!