There’s a fine line between “pushing yourself out of your comfort zone” and “pushing yourself into a mental breakdown” and we need to fucking find it and stop encouraging people to do the second in an attempt at making them do the first.
A German pedagogue named Tom Senninger developed this model called the “Learning Zone Model.” Senninger talks about three zones: comfort, learning (or growth), and panic. I think that’s really important because some people do talk like anything “outside your comfort zone” is automatically good and brings growth.
But Senninger knows that you can only stretch so far before you’ve stretched too far. Both experience, personal work, and therapy can help expand the first two zones and shrink the third, but we’ll always have that place where panic and/or pain sets in, and our goal should be to recognize and respect that in ourselves and others, rather than force ourselves or someone else to “push through it.” There is no “through it.” The only thing on the other side of the panic zone is more panic.
“Edgy” performers take note. Pushing your audience into the learning zone is great. Pushing them into the panic zone is not helpful or entertaining for anyone.
