Leaving Your Comfort Zone: Coach Ata Ceviker

Six months ago I packed up my life and moved to Brisbane to work at Rebuild Health and Fitness. I left my life behind to forge a new path.

It has not been an easy process. I was living in Turkey before I moved to Australia. When I came here, I left my family, my wife and my dog ??behind. I can say that this was the hardest part for me.

I sold my own gym; I was a business owner before I came here. I sold my business because I wanted my full focus to be on where I was moving. When I think about all this, I can say that I not only left my comfort zone; I pretty much demolished it.

Even though there were good people around me when I arrived, I was in a place I’d never been, with people I didn’t know and everyone spoke a different language - which I did not have full command of. I was no longer a business owner, but an employee.

I've never been overly attached to my comfort zone, but it was still quite difficult to manage that much change.

But at the same time, leaving my safe space and doing this job in a different part of the world in a completely different language has strengthened my self-confidence and my job, and I feel that it has taken me incredibly far, even in just six months.

I'm still trying to get used to it, of course, but I feel happy. This may be the scariest thing I've ever done in my life, but I've never been afraid to make big decisions. That's how my college life started. In the same way, I started my own business, and then again, using these opportunities, I came to live in a different part of the world.

Discomfort is where growth happens, that’s why I chose to do this.