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Comfort. It's comfortable. And deadly.

Music and links from this episode

1. Mystery Mammal from their great new album, Risk Society
2. I featured the tracks: Ruin, Greenhorn, and All Your Organs Get a Laugh

Line-by-line notes

1. Today's episode was going to be an extended one
2. But at the last minute
3. I changed my mind
4. Something has been nagging at me the last few days
5. About comfort zones
6. And how nobody likes to step out of them
7. But really, the only way we get better as humans
8. Is to step outside our comfort zones
9. This is AADA, and I'm Craig Burgess
10. MUSIC
11. Design and the creative industries require very specific things from you that lots of other careers dont
12. You have to adaptable, changing to variables that can appear at the drop of the hat
13. You have to be consistently improving, because things move so fast 
14. And that is something that gets harder as time goes on
15. When you first start in any career, everything is new
16. Anything at all that you learn is an improvement 
17. Every small increment is an improvement
18. But when you've been doing the design game for a while
19. You feel like you've seen it all
20. Or done everything 
21. Worst of all, lots of people feel like they know it all
22. That there's nothing left to learn
23. That's comfort
24. And it's deadly in a fast moving industry 
25. You can't ever get comfortable 
26. Comfort breeds arrogsnce
27. And cockiness
28. And not only are those traits not nice to see in somebody
29. They're self limiting
30. When you think you know everything, you stop learning everything 
31. Ive spoken lots about lifting weights on this podcast 
32. And i don't just do it keep fit and get stronger
33. I do it for the mental strength that it gives me
34. Lifting heavy weights pushes you far out of your comfort zone
35. When you've got a massive weight crushing your whole body and the only way to escape is to push it away
36. You find mental strength you didn't know you possessed
37. And finding that mental strength breeds more mental strength
38. This is exactly the same reason why pushing yourself out of a realm of comfort is so important
39. Progression isn't made by doing the same thing over and over
40. The only way to progress with anything is to increase the chsllenge
41. And as a designer, as you get better and better, that challenge needs to get bigger and bigger
42. When you get past all the initial book learning 
43. And reading the magazines 
44. And doing all the design work over the years 
45. Then you have to start working really hard to get outside of your comfort zone
46. I'm lucky in some ways
47. I've always thought like this
48. And I know that the only way to get better is through insane amounts of hard work
49. I don't always do the hard work
50. Sometimes I'm lazy
...