I quit toxic growth culture and that’s when my businesses finally took off.

You know that advice everyone loves to throw around? “Get outside your comfort zone.”
“Do the things that scare you.”  “If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.”

We’ve been convinced that if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.

And I believed this for way too long, until it nearly destroyed me and my business!

Everything changed when I stopped trying to force myself into anxiety-inducing situations and instead started expanding my comfort zone.

That’s when my whole approach to growth shifted.

So I’m going to share my completely different take on comfort zones, the anxiety scale and the expansion method that helped me build multiple six-figure businesses without burning out.

Because that constant anxiety that everyone says is just part of being an entrepreneur? You actually don’t need to live like that.

Before we dive in, Revolut Business is offering a $200 welcome bonus for new signups, just click this link: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/rb/creativehiveco

I’ll share why I love it a little later, but for now, let’s get into why everything you’ve been told about comfort zones is totally wrong.

Comfort Zone is the Genius Zone

What if your comfort zone isn’t something to escape from?

What if we’ve been getting this completely backwards?

Here’s how I actually think about comfort zones. Your comfort zone isn’t some little box you need to break out of to succeed. 

Your comfort zone is telling you what your values and philosophies are as an artist and business owner. It’s like your business vision, quietly showing you who you really are. And here’s the thing: you don’t have to change that to be successful.

There’s so much pressure on social media to be, do, think, or look a certain way to “make it.”

But I’m living proof that you don’t have to turn into some “typical” business person to build your version of success.

In fact, I believe your comfort zone is actually your zone of genius.

Take consistency, for example. The business world is obsessed with it:

• Post every day.
• Show up at the same time.
• Have a routine.
• Do the same thing over and over or at least every Tuesday at 9AM.

And if you can’t do it, you’re shamed into thinking you’re not cut out to be a business owner. 

But consistency was completely outside my comfort zone. My brain just doesn’t work that way. And for years, I tried to force myself into this perfectly consistent schedule that made me miserable.

The only thing I was consistent with was feeling less than about myself, for way too long.

Then it hit me, what if I didn’t need to change who I am at all? What if all this struggle was just my brain’s way of saying, “Hey, you’ve got a different rhythm, and that’s okay”?

So I stopped fighting it. Instead of trying to cram myself into this idea of what “consistency” should look like, I leaned into what actually works for me, my own natural rhythm.

I asked myself:

1. When do I work best?
2. Where do I feel most creative?
3. What actually feels good for my brain and body?

And that’s when things really shifted and I found a way to show up consistently without being consistent in the traditional sense.

So, here’s what I did. I batched my content in those bursts of energy when inspiration struck.

I leaned on scheduling tools so my audience still saw me show up regularly, even when I was recharging offline and I built systems that worked with me, not against me.

The result?

I kept a strong, reliable presence for my audience while honoring my completely unpredictable work style.

I didn’t have to become a different person to be successful. I just had to get aligned with how I naturally work which, honestly, is so much easier.

Which, by the way, I’m writing an entire book around all of this, called Make It Easy.

It’s about how to make things easier for yourself as an artist in business so you can have more financial success and happiness.

So if that sounds like your kind of read, stick around. Follow me on instagram @creativehive so you’ll be the first to know when it’s out.

The Cost of Pushing Too Far

So here’s a question, if our comfort zone is actually protecting our genius, why is everyone telling us to leave it?

Because no one talks about what really happens when you push too far, too fast.

Here’s the dark side of that ever-popular “get outside your comfort zone” advice: when you force yourself too far outside of it and things go wrong, the fallout can be brutal.

I’m not just talking about feeling a little embarrassed. I’m talking about launching a product that completely flops.

Spending an entire weekend at a craft show and barely breaking even while people walk by your booth with rude comments.

Or putting your art and therefore yourself out there on social media only to get criticized or rejected, it takes a long time to recover from that.

You don’t just bounce back the next day. You lose momentum in your business. You retreat and you stop showing up.

You have an existential crisis. And here’s the worst part, you actually build MORE fear around that thing.

Now you have trauma and wounds that are infected. Your brain’s like, “See? I told you that was dangerous. Don’t do that ever again.”

I learned this the hard way. For a long time, I pushed myself to do things that didn’t just feel uncomfortable, they felt like my heart was going to stop from the anxiety.

And every time I did, I paid the price.

The recovery time wasn’t just a day or two, sometimes it was weeks, months, even years before I could bring myself to try again. And my business was spinning its wheels, it wasn’t going anywhere. 

That’s when I realized: growth doesn’t have to hurt like that.

When you honor your natural boundaries and work within them, you can gently stretch them outward and you grow without all the trauma and setbacks that come from forcing yourself into something that feels genuinely unsafe to your mind and body.

Speaking of working with your natural tendencies instead of against them, this is exactly why I’ve been looking into business financial options that don’t make me want to hide under my desk.

Revolut Business, is a financial super app that’s specifically designed for online businesses and creative entrepreneurs.

They have over 6 million customers globally and a 4.9 out of 5 rating on the App Store from almost a million users.

What I love about the reviews I’ve been reading is that creative business owners are saying things like “it’s much better than traditional banks” for managing money. 

You can set up an account online in like 10 minutes, it automatically categorizes your expenses when you snap a photo of receipts, and it syncs directly with accounting software like Xero. 

You can send invoices for custom orders or send payment links if you’re taking orders over the DM’s or in email. 

Plus if you’re paying freelancers or suppliers internationally, it’s way faster and cheaper than regular bank transfers.

It also integrates directly with Shopify and other ecommerce platforms, so if you’re selling online, everything just flows together seamlessly. 

And they’re offering $200 welcome bonus for new business accounts. Just open one and add funds before December 31, 2025 to snag it. (Subscription fees and T&Cs apply. US new business customers only.)

Click the link here to sign up: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/rb/creativehiveco

Anxiety scale

Most people get this part completely wrong about discomfort, they lump all anxiety into the same bucket and call it bad.

But here’s the truth: not all anxiety is created equal. Let’s talk about what I call the Anxiety Scale.

There are many kinds of anxieties but for the context of this video, I want to highlight two different types of anxiety, and learning to tell them apart is a subtle but crucial step.

First, there’s the good kind, the one that feels like a rush of excitement mixed with a little fear. It’s that tingly, butterflies in your stomach feeling.

Performers feel it before stepping on stage, athletes feel it before a big game, and you might feel it right before your first craft show.

It’s scary, sure, but it also carries this electric energy that says, “This matters.”

Then there’s the other kind, the full-blown panic that makes you feel like the world is closing in, your chest is tight, and you might actually stop breathing. It feels like danger, not excitement.

And here’s the tricky part, both of these show up almost identically in your body. Racing heart, sweaty palms, nervous energy.

But one pushes you toward growth and the other can completely shut you down.

The “this feels exciting” kind of anxiety? That’s the good stuff. It’s like butterflies in your stomach and your heart racing but with an undertone of curiosity and possibility.

There’s even a flicker of fun in it. It’s your body saying, “Hey, this could be good for us.”

Then there’s the other kind, the bad anxiety. The “whole world is about to collapse” kind.

That’s when your chest tightens, your brain freezes, and every cell in your body is screaming, “ABORT MISSION.”

It’s the kind where you’d rather take a one-star review than force yourself to do the thing that triggered it.

And here’s the problem, most business advice shoves us straight into that zone.

The one that fries your nervous system, the one that leaves you burned out, exhausted, and honestly, a little resentful of your business especially when the results don’t even come close to justifying the suffering you put yourself through.

The truth is, that’s not growth, that’s trauma. And trauma doesn’t build businesses, it makes you hide. It makes you want to give up on everything you’ve worked so hard for.

Expansion Method

So, if you’re not supposed to “leave” your comfort zone, how do you actually grow?

This is where my Expansion Method comes in, the exact approach that helped me build multiple six- and seven-figure businesses without changing who I am.

Instead of taking giant leaps that send your nervous system into full-on panic mode, you focus on tiny, sustainable nudges.

Little pushes at the edges of your comfort zone that feel exciting, not terrifying.

Think of it like strength training for your nervous system. 

Every small rep makes you stronger. Take pricing, for example. When I first realized I was severely undercharging for my necklaces at $28, I couldn’t just leap to the price I knew I needed to charge.

That would have triggered the bad, stomach-drop anxiety that makes you freeze up and second-guess everything.

So instead, I started small. I raised my prices by just a few dollars. It felt manageable, even a little exciting like, “Ooh, let’s see what happens.”

A few months later, I nudged them up again. Then eventually, they landed at $49.99. Each step felt doable, and instead of panicking, I actually looked forward to seeing the results.

Customers barely noticed the small increases but a sudden $22 jump? My regulars definitely would’ve noticed that.

But here’s the part most people completely miss: you have to get your ego out of the way.

I had to learn to be okay with making mistakes and stop treating them like a personal reflection of my worth.

Laughing off my mistakes (or at least learning from them) made it so much easier to bounce back and try again.

It was way better than sitting around, licking my wounds, and playing the victim thinking, “woe is me.”

When a post flopped or I stumbled over my words in a video, I stopped telling myself, “I’m terrible at this,” and started thinking, “Okay, cool, that’s a lesson. Next time will be better.”

And honestly, no one is going to remember or even notice that I made a mistake anyway.

And the few people who do notice and give you a hard time about it? You definitely don’t want to design your life (or your business) around their opinions.

What I love about this approach is that it actually works with your natural tendencies instead of fighting against them.

If you’re naturally introverted, you don’t suddenly have to turn into the person running around networking events.

You just find ways to connect with people that feel authentic and comfortable for you.

If you’re not naturally consistent, you don’t force yourself into some soul-crushing daily routine that makes you miserable. 

You build systems that let you show up without having to be “on” every single day.

And over time? Your comfort zone actually grows. Stuff that used to feel terrifying starts to feel normal. Easy, even.

You never have to abandon who you are at your core. You’re not transforming into a completely different person, you’re just becoming a deeper, more dimensional version of yourself.

Because once you understand the difference between expanding your comfort zone and trying to escape it, you start seeing this everywhere in your business.

Especially with the thing that sends most creative entrepreneurs straight into that bad anxiety zone.

Take social media, for example. Everyone says, “Post every day! Be on every platform! Show your face constantly!”

But what if I told you some of my biggest sales months ever came when I was barely posting at all?

Instead of following the typical advice, I was running a completely different strategy, one that felt easy, fun, and exciting to do, instead of scary and draining.

That’s what I mean about working with your comfort zone instead of against it. There are so many ways to get your products in front of thousands of people without burning yourself out.

And no, you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not to do it.

At the end of the day, growth doesn’t have to feel like a battle. You don’t need to force yourself into pain, fear, or someone else’s idea of what success should look like.

So forget the old rules about hustling harder and leaving your comfort zone behind, real growth comes when you expand from where you already are, in a way that feels exciting, sustainable, and fully aligned with who you truly are.