Dr Catherine Conlan: 'If you are not taking chances, you are not growing'

My 23-year-old daughter is the last of the four to leave home. She finished a Masters in UCC in September and three weeks later, packed her bags with two friends and headed for Barcelona.

Her older brother had laid the foundations for that particular route when he set off to the city five years ago.

Now he has a job that he loves, an apartment and a life - work, surfing, hiking, jiu-jitsu, and lots more besides. I can’t imagine he will ever come back to the long months of cold, wind and rain that epitomises Irish winters.

His sister got the bug. As soon as she could, she was off. For the first few months, she finished off the job she had on work placement while doing her Masters. But by the end of the year, she needed a job to keep the dream going.

She would take almost anything until she found a ‘proper’ job. Only working in a bar was out-ruled. Up all night, sleeping all day, being leered at by beery travellers, and walking home late at night. Not a chance.

A couple of weeks later, she had found a job in a marketing firm, with offices looking out over the marina. Three interviews in one week – four days later she got the go-ahead.

Money was tight for the last few months. She knew if she ran out she would be on the way home. The prospect of having to leave Barcelona and forsake her new found independence with her friends in the city of her dreams was all the motivation she needed to put everything into getting the outcome she needed.

And so, the adventure goes on. She’s there because she learnt to stand on her two feet as a child.

I did not have her spirit of adventure when I was her age. However, her three older siblings and her army of cousins taught her from very early on that life begins when you step out of your comfort zone.

In recent weeks, the latest round of data from the Growing up in Ireland survey found that almost two-thirds (62%) of 25-year-olds were living with their parents – mostly for financial reasons.

The study showed nearly a third of women (31%) and almost one in five men (18%) of men had been diagnosed with either depression or anxiety at some point in their lives.

A tiny fraction of respondents (7.5%) were living outside the parental home and outside the region they lived in when they were aged nine.

The study, called the ‘Growing Up in Ireland Cohort ‘98’, interviews the same group of people who were born in 1998 as it follows them from childhood to adulthood. The majority reported they were optimistic about the future and were satisfied with their lives.

But how can the majority of 25-year-olds be satisfied with a situation where they are still forced for financial reasons to live at home?

In Ireland, we are really fortunate to have the whole of the EU available to us when it comes to job applications. Language of course is a barrier but not an insurmountable one.

The youngest learnt Spanish as an extra subject when she was in senior school, augmented by two summers spent in Spain as an au pair where she spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and swimming in the pool with her charges.

Her brother learnt Spanish from Duolingo in the six months before he decided that’s where he wanted to live and work.

So, language is not an insurmountable barrier.

The bigger barrier is the ability to step out of your comfort zone and dive into a new culture without the of friends or family and to weather the challenges that that implies.

We are told that stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way to grow. But what is the evidence for this?

The idea of comfort zones is rooted in research conducted by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Donson in 1908. They developed the Yerkes-Dodson Law which states that performance increases as stress increases and performance decreases as stress decreases.

To a point. Beyond a certain high level of stress, the relationship breaks down and performance plummets.

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone forces you to work harder and performance and outcomes improve. By moving out of your comfort zone you move into your growth zones and your achieve growth. You’ll find yourself more productive, achieving more, and reaching the goals you set for yourself – if you’re willing to work.

Accomplishments bring the added reward of self-confidence, especially if you worked hard, challenged yourself and saw it through. And the boost in self-confidence you get can push you to achieve more.

Travelling to a new city is challenging on your own but brings its own particular rewards. Learning a new culture, a new language, meeting new people, seeing new places and trying new experiences. All of these can heighten your awareness of the world and your place in it. It can lead to new interests, new job prospects and new ways of doing things you might want to explore.

Critically, moving outside your comfort zone can build resilience – a quality that in our safety-first culture of helicopter parenting and bulldozing barriers out of the way for young kids, is often in short supply. We all gain more confidence by dealing with setbacks and learning to handle higher levels of stress and uncertainty.

Stepping out of our comfort zone is key to developing a sense of self about who we really are.

Summer holidays can be a great time to build resilience. My tribe spent their summers roaming around Ballinskelligs with their cousins, climbing mountains, jumping into the sea, surfing way out in the distance where the waves were breaking far, from the reach of their mother anxiously yelling at them to come in. Later, they travelled abroad on exchanges, fending for themselves for months at a time, having adventures, learning languages, getting into scrapes, sorting things out on their own.

The youngest particularly enjoyed being without the essentials. Holidaying in a caravan without running water, electricity, or any of the most basic comforts once it was near the ocean was her idea of heaven. Even now, all she wants is a camper van, a laptop, and the ability to roam the world.

If you’re not taking chances in life, you’re not growing. You’re not fulfilling your dreams or goals. If you find yourself wondering why you’re not getting on - making new friends, moving on in your job - then perhaps it’s time to wonder if you need to step out of your comfort zone.

Staying in a bubble of comfort leads to boredom, frustration, and stagnancy.

The best way to move forward is to start small, accept that it will take a while to learn something new, set a plan, visualise what you want to achieve, and get going. Maybe it’s time to push yourself towards figuring out who you really are.