Be prepared to be a little bit brave every day. Why? Because if you don’t you’ll grow stagnant and mouldy or curl up and wither. We all have a comfort zone where we feel safe and warm and dry. But every now and then we need to step outside and be challenged, be frightened, be stimulated. It’s this way that we stay young and feel good about ourselves.

If we grow too attached to our comfort zone, chances are it will either start to shrink, or something will come along and dismantle it. Fate, or whatever it is that runs things, doesn’t like us to get too complacent and every now and then gives us a great big cosmic kick up the backside to wake us up. If we have practised stretching the boundaries of our woolly cocoon occasionally, that kick won’t have too much impact – we’re ready for it – it’s much easier to cope.

But it’s more than that. Expanding your comfort zone makes you feel good about yourself. It gives you extra confidence. And the best bit is that you can do it oh so gently. You don’t have to go hang-gliding or fire-walking or have sex with a stranger just to test your comfort zone. It might be as simple as volunteering for something that you’ve never done before and that you feel slightly nervous about. It could be taking up a new sport or hobby. Maybe it will involve joining something. It could be doing something alone that you’ve only ever done in company before or speaking up for yourself when you would usually keep quiet.

We impose a lot of restrictions on ourselves that limit us, hold us back. We think we couldn’t do that, wouldn’t feel happy with that. Taking the challenge of expanding our comfort zone brings us out of ourselves and keeps us learning and growing. You can’t grow mould if you’re growing experience.