“What we believe about ourselves can influence what we are willing to learn or try.“
When I used to teach in a classroom, we’d run a common experiential exercise at the start of every semester where you put three circles on the ground (I’d use three different ropes). There’s a small circle in the middle, a bigger circle around it, and an even bigger circle around them both. The inside circle would represent the “comfort zone.” The middle area represented the “learning or growth zone.” And the outside circle was the “danger zone.”
My students would stand around the circle and listen to a series of questions and then go stand in the part of the circle that represented how they felt about it. For example, I’d ask “What if I asked you to write a 5 paragraph essay today?” They’d go stand in whatever zone represented how they felt about that activity.
Now, I was teaching high school aged students who were labelled “at-risk” by the school system. Many of them were in and out of foster homes, were moved from program to program, and fell far behind in school as a result.
Understandably, many of them felt in their “danger zone” with certain activities that someone might assume all high schoolers should be able to do. But I wasn’t creating a course to meet some generalized standards. I was creating something that they could feel successful in because it met them where they were.
That’s what you want to do for your ideal clients and students. First,
When you create your courses and program, you’re going to have to figure out the where everyone needs to be in their learning journey in order to feel successful with your curriculum.
So let’s talk about the three key learning zones and how to use them to figure out who is an ideal student or client for your course, so that you’re enrolling people who are a really great fit for you, who are not going to be so stressed out they aren’t learning from, and who are also not so bored that they’re checked out. Instead, they’re having a wonderful experience in your program, offering great reviews and referrals, and feeling successful because of what you teach!
So what you’ll want to have is a piece of paper and I’m going to show you a visual of what to draw on that piece of paper.
The smallest circle in the middle is your comfort/safe zone. Around that is your learning/growth zone. Around that is your danger/survival zone.
On mine they’re not perfect circles for a reason, because everything is always changing! Often something that felt in your learning zone can become so natural for you after a lot of practice, it moves into your safe zone. It can go the other way too though! If you’re under a lot of stress, or move too fast through something in your learning zone, that activity can start to feel in your danger zone.
For example: sales calls. If you’re learning to run successful sales calls but you haven’t anticipated or prepared for a rude and difficult call, you may feel shocked and frozen after talking to someone who chose to use harsh and insulting language with you. Without time to assess what went wrong and to process the experience, you can start to feel more in your survival zone when approaching future sales calls!
Here’s how each zone feels:
Your comfort/safe zone feels stress-free. You’re at ease and don’t have to put a lot of thought into what you’re doing.
The learning zone/growth zone is the goal when you’re teaching. This is where you want your clients/students to be. It’s where you feel challenged. You know you have to be present, thinking, focused, and paying attention.
The danger/survival zone is NOT where you want anyone to be when they’re learning from you. You do want to encourage them to know if that’s what’s going on for them. In the danger zone, you’ve gone into the reptilian brain, which is essentially a stressed out brain. You’re less likely to think clearly or retain information.
The frontal cortex is where you want to be when learning something new. That’s where you can take in new ideas and form concepts. In the reptilian brain, you’re mostly in your instinct, and your mind and body are preparing for fight, flight or freeze. In other words, it’s all about survival.
This kind of stress affects your memory! That’s why when there is a major traumatic event, and there are multiple witnesses, it’s almost impossible to get a consistent story about exactly what happened. Under stress, we don’t remember events well.
We don’t want that for our students at all! We want them to be in their learning and growth zone.
So here’s what you get to do to figure this out for your course.
- List out what is important for your ideal student or client to be willing to learn in order to be successful with what and how you teach. For example, let’s say you teach an online dance course to help people get into their bodies and work through body image. You know that your students are most likely uncomfortable with their bodies coming into the course, and probably a little nervous about moving in different ways in front of others. However, you also know that as long as they’re open to trying out the moves and trusting your coaching and the support of the group, they can be in their learning zone with this activity and make amazing progress. You also know it probably isn’t a great fit for individuals who are already professional dancers and have no body image issues at all. It won’t be a good fit for someone unwilling to try nor will it work for individuals who don’t feel challenged at all with embodiment. Write that down!
- You can start writing your “who this course is for” and “who this course is not for” lists! This is important because that’s going to go on your sales page.
- You can also refer to these learning and growth zones and the list you come up with to determine who is a great client for you and who you’re excited to work with and create curriculum for! That way you can put your energy into creating something amazing for them and stop stressing about trying to be for everyone.
I hope this is helpful. If you want to share your insight or what you learned, that would be great. I would love to see it.
Bonus:
Download the below poster and try a visual exercise where you see where you and your clients/fall with certain activities.
Finally, take the creative archetype quiz to find out more about the best course and program creation style for you based on your strengths, interests, and who you are!