Comfort, Stretch, Panic: Which Zone Are You In?

I have recently been reminded of the Comfort, Stretch, Panic model.

I was having a very quiet day at work, as sometimes happens. No meetings, no influx of emails, no clients to see. As I went about my day, I kept myself busy with other tasks such as catching up on coaching books I had long since meant to read.

At first, it was lovely. What a treat to stop the relentless hamster-wheel of the modern world of work. However, after a short while I couldn’t help but notice a creeping sense of boredom. It had only been a few hours, but I started to lose focus and felt very unproductive.

The next day I had a piece of client work. Suddenly, I felt different. I had a pep in my step, a sense of purpose, a feeling of being ‘in the zone’. When I got home, I was tired, but it was a happy type of tired. I felt a real sense of achievement, the kind that comes after a productive and enjoyable day.

Later on, I connected with a colleague, and they were having a very different sort of day; a day packed with meetings and client demands. I could tell from their body language that they felt overstretched. The day was too busy, too full and they were overwhelmed by their duties.

I later connected this experience to one of my favourite models, the Comfort, Stretch, Panic model, commonly associated with the work of Karl Rohnke and later explored by Ryan and Markova in 2006.