Nestled between the stress of overwhelm, and the safety of comfort, lies a sweet spot.

A place where you’re stretched just enough that you must evolve beyond yourself, but not so much that you break under the pressure.

An acorn knows how it works—it requires just the right blend of support and challenge to grow into an oak. Without the support of enough water and nutrients, it cannot survive. But without the challenge to ascend into the sunlight, it will also fail to reach the height of its maturity.

The problem is, we’re more complicated than acorns. And so we must learn to recognize and navigate the stress zone and the comfort zone, learning how to settle into the sweet spot in between.

The Stress Zone

Running Coaches Rising I was not short on challenge. Leading a small business through its own growing pains is painful for the leaders and the people inside.

After several years of consistent growth, Covid happened. It was amazing and terrible for us. We grew like crazy as everyone sheltered in place and discovered zoom. Then we contracted as the market saturated, and things started to go wrong. We had to steer the company through a new market. We no longer had the place to ourselves, we had to adapt. Alongside this, we needed to professionalise. Too many of our processes were based on people keeping stuff in their heads, and not enough was written down.

The upheaval led to one of my business partners and co-founders leaving the business. Which upped the challenge levels immeasurably.

Running such a business threw challenges at me on a daily basis. I not only had my own responsibilities and projects, but I was also helping our team with all theirs.

I reached a place that’s common to entrepreneurs, where my endless to-do list produced the experience of being a hamster in a wheel, with never enough time to take stock and find my centre.

I began to rely on the challenges coming at me, rather than seeking them out and choosing the trials I faced. And I became a good servant leader, working myself into the ground for the good of the cause.

This is a masculine wound. The warrior who does not have the wisdom to stop, and wind down from the battle and actually feel himself.

I became so used to being out of my comfort zone that at some point I just let go, and let the storm reshape me. It was messy at times, and yet it forced me to mature in profound ways.

But it had a cost.

The pressure was relentless and gave me no room or ground from which to use my inbuilt gifts—my artistry, creativity and transformational wisdom. And so, I “put them away for another day, when I had time.”

Until my body stepped in and closed the whole thing down. I was forced to look at what I’d been ignoring.

This is an example of too much challenge. Which results in overshooting the growth zone.

The stress of responsibility, combined with the burying of my deeper gifts left me dry, tight and uninspired. I didn’t know how to find enough support for myself, and my growth stagnated.

This is the stress zone.

The Comfort Zone

The opposite of the stress zone is the comfort zone. Something we all know intimately.

This is where there is not enough challenge (and too much support).

It’s a strategic form of threat aversion. You bed down where it feels safe, do all the things that you know are ok, and don’t take any risks. It’s like an antelope hiding out in the bush after a near thing with a lion.

If the antelope had our “sophisticated” neocortex, it would spin all kinds of stories about the world, get stuck in its trauma, and become afraid to do anything that risks the lion finding it again.

Real antelopes don’t do this. When their senses tell them it’s safe once more, they get up, hop off and continue on with their life.

The comfort zone is a result of trying to create safety, by sticking to what you know. It feels like you’re being smart and responsible, not putting too much pressure on yourself. But like too much stress and challenge, it also misses the sweet spot.

I have ingenious ways of staying in the comfort zone. When the goals and challenges feel big, I like to “calm myself down”, spending hours doing spiritual practice so I feel better. Or concocting more detailed plans and strategies that I hope will nullify the fear and insecurity.

When stuck in the comfort zone, I stay where I am, like the antelope in the bush, waiting for a moment it feels safe to emerge. I diligently do things that I think make me feel safer.

But the result isn’t real safety. It’s a particular brand of anxiety that doesn’t abate. It can seem like I’m supporting myself and taking care of myself, but really I’m hiding. Perhaps you recognize your own version of this.

The incessant quest to create safety results in an experience that feels anything but safe, because it’s predicated on a mistaken belief. That one day it will be safe.

This is the comfort zone. Which is a strange name for it. Because underneath all the strategizing, it’s anything but safe.

Between these two zones of stress and comfort lies a third place—the growth zone.

The Magic of the Growth Zone

On the inside, the growth zone feels like the result of having taken a series of steps far enough outside of known territory, that I don’t even fully understand how I got here, or what’s going on. And yet it’s thrilling. The courage has made me do things that seem risky to the antelope in the bush, but as I do them, I start to feel more like the lion.

I sit writing this having finished the manuscript for my book. I’ve dreamed of reaching this stage. And now I’m here, it feels so totally weird. I’m proud, and excited. And yet it all feels so unfamiliar. Like I’ve wandered out of the town I know so well, and I find myself in a place I’ve never been before. One I didn’t even know existed.

I got here by following the call deep inside. The one that said “you must finish this book”. I knew it was true, though I had no idea how to do it.

I did it by committing completely to the goal. And then every day, showing up to work on it no matter my mood. The inner voices were unequivocal in their caution. “How can you think you can do this Ewan? You have no track record.”

Which is exactly the point. I had to grow to be able to finish it. The one that started the book was not the same one that finished it. And in order to become that person, I had to choose very carefully who I was going to listen to.

“Don’t go that way!” Says the antelope.

But in the magic of the growth-zone, resistance works like a signpost, pointing the way.

One form of resistance is to be trusted (a genuine indication to head another direction). It’s your heart not wanting to go that way, but your mind thinking you have to. This is a kind of deadening resistance. It makes your heart sink, and your energy drop.

The other kind of resistance makes your pulse quicken and your energy activate. It feels like fear, but is also excitement (if you can alchemize the sensations). Because it’s actually both—life force energy activating as the path lights up. This kind of resistance is like a neon sign over the doorway.

“Scared as fuck? Step right through.”

This is the feeling of being in the growth zone—working outside of known reality, risking all the things that keep you comfortable and seemingly safe.

And in this way, do we grow, as the tree grows, becoming ever bigger and wider. The acorn fulfils its contract to become the oak. You and I fulfil the mission we came here with. To grow into the big and beautiful being we’re asked to become.

Where is your resistance pointing you? What is the magic that is calling you inside the growth zone?