The comfort zone does not look the same for everyone. For some solo parents, it is the quiet that finally arrives after a long stretch of chaos, and the instinct is to hold onto it with both hands. For others, the chaos itself has become the comfort zone. The constant motion, the putting-out-of-fires, the never-quite-catching-up. It is familiar. It is what you know. And stepping out of it, even toward something better, can feel just as unsettling as anything else.
Wherever you are on this journey, the question worth asking yourself is the same: is what I am living in right now actually working for me, or has it just become what I am used to?
That question sits at the heart of this conversation. Robert Beeson, Founder and CEO of Solo Parent, and Elizabeth Cole, single parent and co-host, are joined by Amber Fuller, a counselor with a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy and single parent herself. Together they map out what the comfort zone actually is, what it costs when we stay there too long, and how getting out of it does not have to mean blowing up your life.
What makes this conversation worth your time is the honesty in it. Nobody is telling you to hustle harder or dream bigger. They are asking something quieter and more useful: what if the thing you are calling comfort is really just familiar? And what if familiar is not the same as free? What if growing is less about arriving somewhere and more about just releasing what no longer fits?
Solo parents feel this tension in specific, daily ways. The fear that trying something new will unravel the stability you have worked so hard to build. The guilt of wanting something for yourself when the kids still need so much. The sense that growth is a luxury for people with more margin than you have right now. And underneath it all, a quiet wondering about who you even are outside of keeping everything together.
Those are real struggles and this conversation does not skip past them. It asks instead what it looks like to move forward anyway, one small step at a time.
Key Insights from This Episode
- Your comfort zone is not comfortable — it’s just familiar, and those are not the same thing.
- The growth zone and the panic zone are different places: one stretches you, the other breaks you.
- One small step is not a consolation prize — it is exactly how lasting growth happens.
Your Comfort Zone Is Not Comfortable — It’s Just Familiar
There is a definition of the comfort zone that sounds almost appealing. Author Judith Bardwick describes it as a behavioral state where a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk. Amber brought that definition into the conversation and paired it with Brene Brown’s framing of a place where uncertainty, scarcity, and vulnerability are minimized. Where you feel like you’ll have access to enough love, time, and admiration. Where you feel some control.
What Elizabeth drew out of that is a real difference between contentment and comfort. Contentment is a kind of internal steadiness, an “I’m okay regardless of my circumstances” that does not depend on everything being still. Comfort, when it stretches on too long, is different. You stop moving down the river. You drift into a cove. The water goes quiet. And that is when the moss starts to grow, that slow, barely noticeable accumulation of stagnation that signals life has stopped moving forward even if nothing feels obviously wrong.
That landed differently when Robert admitted that his own comfort zone does not actually feel comfortable. It just feels like the known thing. “It’s not pleasant necessarily,” he said, “but it’s what I know.” Amber pushed that further: sometimes what gets called the comfort zone is really just avoidance wearing the clothes of stability. Not anxiety-free, just anxiety-suppressed. Anticipating what might be ahead and quietly choosing not to move toward it.
Elizabeth put a picture to it that stuck. After going through a hard stretch and finally getting things level again, her instinct was to look at everyone around her and say: nobody move. She described it as manufacturing a comfort zone because she needed life to just pause. But even in that stillness, you cannot breathe fully. You are holding on to the tree branch while the river moves underneath you. Not in the water, but not free either.
That is what the comfort zone actually looks like for most solo parents. Not peaceful. Just familiar. And familiar, as it turns out, has a ceiling.
The Growth Zone and the Panic Zone Are Different Places
One of the most clarifying moments in the conversation came when the three of them mapped out what actually lies on the other side of the comfort zone. Because there are two very different destinations, and confusing them is one of the most common reasons solo parents either stay stuck or burn out.
The growth zone, as Elizabeth described it, is healthy discomfort. Intentional stretching. You do not know exactly what is ahead, but you know the direction you are moving and why you are going there. You are making mistakes, failing forward, building new muscles. There is risk, but there is purpose. Growth almost always involves self-doubt and awkwardness, Robert noted. It feels clumsy. And that clumsiness is usually a sign you are doing it right.
The panic zone is something else entirely. That is where it stops feeling intentional. You are way beyond your skill level, the waterfall is coming, and there is no clear way out. Amber explained that in that state, really bad decisions get made, people shut down completely, or a backfire effect kicks in where things go badly enough that trying again feels impossible. “Growth feels like an intentional decision to learn, to engage, to make progress,” she said. “Panic feels like something that almost happens to you.”
Elizabeth lived both sides of this. There was a season when she was trying to fix everything at once: finances, healing, relationships, parenting, all of it simultaneously. She thought she was in a growth mindset. What she was actually in was the panic zone, and it burned her out completely, landing her right back where she started. It was only when she released the idea of a fixed destination and started watching for what she was supposed to grow into next that things began to shift.
If you find yourself tipping toward panic, it is completely okay to return to comfort. Not as defeat. Just as a smart pause. “It doesn’t mean what you’re doing is wrong,” Robert said. “It’s actually right. Let’s just not get ahead of ourselves.”
Feelings, Amber reminded, can inform your pace without running the show. If something feels like too much too fast, that is useful information. It does not mean stop. It means slow down enough to stay in the boat.
One Small Step Is Not a Consolation Prize
If there is a single thread running through everything discussed about how to actually move into the growth zone, it is this: start smaller than you think you need to.
Reconnecting with desire is where Elizabeth said it begins for her. Not a grand five-year vision, just an honest question: what do I actually want? What would I do if I weren’t afraid? What brings me excitement right now? Those questions create a pull toward growth without demanding a destination. And desire, she was clear, can also be about moving away from something, not just toward it. Wanting to stop a pattern, break a cycle, or get out of a situation that is no longer working is just as valid a starting point.
Amber’s story made this tangible. She knew something had to change financially but did not commit to finishing a degree or plan out graduate school. She made an appointment with an advisor. That was it. One step. And that one step eventually led to completing her master’s degree the same May her youngest graduated high school. Her daughter insisted they take graduation photos together in their caps and gowns. Her kids had been on the entire journey, through the sacrifices and the stress and the late homework nights. What they saw was this: Mom can do hard things. Now her daughter is talking about pursuing her own graduate degree, something she once said she never wanted to do.
Your kids are watching. Robert was direct about it. If you coast, they learn to coast. If you push so hard you burn out, they absorb that too. But if they see you taking small, intentional steps and talking about them honestly, they learn that growth is possible, that hard things are worth doing, and that the process itself has value.
A mindset shift Elizabeth has carried for years: time passes whether you use it or not. A year from now you can be in the exact same spot, or you can already have one class under your belt, one new thing started, one small step made. It does not have to be a massive overhaul. It just has to be a step in a direction that matters.
Amber closed the loop with something simple and true. She caught herself saying out loud recently: “I make time for things that matter.” When she said it, it felt embodied and real. Not a goal. A current identity. That shift from aspiration to declaration, she said, is part of what makes growth stick.
One Step Is Enough
Nobody here is asking you to overhaul your life or set an ambitious five-year plan or suddenly become a different version of yourself. What this conversation is really asking is much quieter and more useful than that.
It is asking you to notice where you have been holding on to the tree branch, not because it is good for you, but because letting go still feels like too much right now. It is asking you to get a little curious about the difference between familiar and free.
Because here is what Robert, Elizabeth, and Amber keep coming back to: the comfort zone is not actually that comfortable. It just feels like something you know. And you have already survived so much of what you did not know. That means you have more capacity for growth than you might be giving yourself credit for right now.
One appointment. One question. One step. That is where it starts. And that is enough.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Judith Bardwick – Danger in the Comfort Zone
- Brene Brown
- Jon Acuff – Soundtracks
