Rule No. 24: GROWTH TAKES PLACE OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
Stretch beyond the familiar. That’s where God shapes you.
Hello, Dear Reader,
Welcome back to another week in The Playbook — Rules for Life.
How has your week been? I pray it’s been one where your successes outweighed your struggles as you balance the scales with only a few weeks left in the fourth quarter. And if it hasn’t—and it was, well, just a week—I pray this new one brings new objects to weigh.
It’s been a little over a week since the clocks went back an hour, and we’ve been left to sit in the darkness that falls by 4:30 p.m. While the setting sun brings another day to an end, I sit writing at my desk with the leaves dancing in the November wind outside my window.
Life has picked up its pace. I’m marching to a quickened beat—the rhythm of purpose. Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of being back on campus at St. John’s University, teaching from the pages of my poetry. Add to that what we call serendipitous encounters, and my spirit takes flight. But I’ve learned that what we call serendipity is often just God's alignment.
Still, it’s always humbling. I’m just a boy from Guyana who, after being denied admission twice to St. John’s before finally being accepted, now walks those same halls as an author and teacher. Even now, I inch closer toward another homecoming at the university—but loose lips sink ships, and I’m not fond of drifting at sea.
It’s hard to believe there are only eight weeks left in 2025. It has been a year of wild growth, as you’ve likely seen throughout The Playbook, which brings me to today’s rule.
Sometimes the only map you have is faith.
Photo by Thomas Chizzali
The Lesson
When I returned to poetry at the end of 2022, two phrases began echoing through my work: certain uncertainty and comfort tested against growth’s rubric.
Those words stayed with me, especially in Reflections: A Journey Within, because they described exactly where I was. The only certainty I had was uncertainty itself. Yet even there, my comfort was being tested against the rubric of growth.
Growth’s rubric, or the rubric of growth, as I define it, is the framework that measures who you are while you are still becoming. It reveals itself only when you leave the familiar behind and choose the actions that shape your future.
Every time I faced a decision that pushed me beyond my comfort zone, I was forced to grow. Whenever I was about to rise to a higher level, I could not do it while staying where I was. My comfort was not only tested; it was often disregarded.
During my master’s program, I taught more than 200 students across 10 classes over two years. I graded papers and planned lessons on trains. Some nights I wrote until 2 a.m., slept for a few hours, and was back to teach by 7:50 a.m. It wasn’t easy, but my comfort was being tested against the rubric of growth, and God was stretching my capacity to hold what I had prayed for.
The Reflection
We spend hours manifesting without moving. But believing is more than seeing; it is showing up.
We pray for promotion yet resist the hardships that prepare us to inhabit it.
We pray for ease yet avoid the labor that makes tomorrow easier than today.
And we often do the same in relationships. In an age of endless optionality, commitment can feel outdated. But the strongest relationships are built through endurance, honesty, and the mirror of love that allows us to grow into who we are meant to be.
I’m not advocating staying where there is abuse or manipulation. We know when we are being mistreated. But sometimes the discomfort is not danger; it is development.
Maybe the boss assigning you extra work sees the leader inside you.
Maybe the friend calling you higher knows healing waits outside your habits.
Maybe the partner challenging your avoidance simply sees the love you are capable of when you stop hiding.
What the Word Says
Even falling leaves make room for new growth.
Here are some Scriptures that have kept me grounded during my own seasons of certain uncertainty:
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” — Genesis 12:1. Growth began for Abraham the moment he left comfort behind.
“Be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9. Courage, not comfort, became the condition of inheritance.
“The testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” — James 1:3–4“We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” — Romans 5:3–4 (KJV)
“Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” — John 15:2. Pruning is never comfortable, but it is always fruitful.
The Practice
That’s where today’s rule lands. Growth demands movement—spiritual, emotional, and practical. It asks you to trust that God’s stretching is not punishment but preparation.
So this week, I challenge you:
Identify one area where you have been clinging to comfort.
Take one step of faith outside of it.
Pray for the courage to keep walking even when the ground feels uncertain.
Because the truth is this: the view only changes when you move.
Rule No. 24: Growth takes place outside of your comfort zone.
The space between where you are and where you are meant to be will always feel uncomfortable, but that is where God does His best work.
