Staying within your comfort zone will kill your growth!

This is me arriving in Oxford for the first time, 9 years ago, to study Biological Sciences.

What I thought would be temporary became my home, my routine, and eventually my comfort zone.

But if neuroscience has taught me anything, it’s this: novelty shapes the brain.

Oxford has given me so much and shaped the person I am today. I think without it I would have been stuck in Gloucester with the limiting mindset I grew up around.

But I know I won’t grow further if I stay inside my comfort zone.

Years ago, while working at a summer camp, I learned a framework we taught the kids that has stuck with me: the three zones of learning.

🛋️ Comfort - Safe, familiar, and low stress.

🔥 Challenge - Where you’re stretched just enough to trigger learning, adaptation, and growth.

💀Danger - Stress overwhelms you, and performance and wellbeing drop.

The aim is not to stay comfortable or to burn out, but to deliberately live in the challenge zone, where growth actually happens through new environments, with new people, new skills and when you step into the unknown.

So I’ve made the decision! I’ll be leaving Oxford to take on the world!!! Call it a travel year: to work, explore, and challenge myself while building my marketing skills and continuing to grow BioBrainBuddies 🧠 overseas.

It’s exciting. It’s daunting. But it feels right.

This next chapter is about testing myself outside of comfort, creating new experiences, and seeing how far I can take the brand I am still very passionate about after starting it years ago.

Here’s to the unknown, and everything it will teach me!

PS: ☕️ And if anyone would like to grab a coffee and catch up before I leave Oxford at the end of October, I’d love that!