How do you define the “comfort zone”？
Stepping out of comfort zone is something that everyone experiences or will experience at least once in their life.For example, we may go from being a student to a working professional, or from being single to becoming a parent. Different people have different definition about their “comfort zone”. In order to make the project could be more achieveable, my tutor suggested first thing I can do is to figure out the definition of “comfort zone“ in my project and narrow down the target audiences.
“The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.”
Judith Bardwick, Danger in the Comfort Zone
In general, when people mentioned “comfort zone”, it refers to people in the stable circumstance without any challenge and risk-taking. some individuals may choose to leave their comfort zones voluntarily in pursuit of personal or professional growth, others may be forced out of their comfort zones due to circumstances such as job loss, major life changes, or unexpected challenges. I listed some key words as below to relate to the definition of “comfort zone” in this project.
Some Key words: Female, 35-50 years old, career-oriented, family, midlife crisis, work-life balance, self-improvement, self-awareness, mental well-beings, motivated, coffee, creative, coffee cup/package design
Based on the key words, I redefine the “comfort zone” as the roles (identities? not sure if the meaning of role and identity is same or different) of women playing in their lives. As a girl grows into a woman, from being a student to a working professional, and from being single to becoming a parent, during the every step of change, she must navigate and fulfill various roles and expectations within society.
Middle Aged-Adults & Midlife Crisis
Researchers and the public have generally considered midlife to encompass the ages of 40 to 60, plus or minus 10 years, making it a relative approximation (Infurna, Gerstorf and Lachman, 2020). And Jung referred midlife as the afternoon of life. But More important for defining midlife than chronological age are the unique role constellations that people take on combined with the timing of life events and experiences (Lachman, 2004).
The term “Midlife crisis” was first coined by Elliott Jaques (1965), when he observed in his midlife client’s abrupt changes in lifestyle and productivity as well as coming face-to-face with one’s own limitations and ever-increasing salience of mortality. Midlife crisis includes mental and physicial challenges.
Inspiration
The project I would like mainly focus on female in midlife, whether she experienced midlife crisis or not, she must have experienced stepping out of her comfort zone (changed her role she need to play in the society) once at least in her lifetime.
Furthermore, my tutor David suggested me that I could explore the connection between my interest in coffee and my topic of comfort zone. Personally, I find that the process of making and drinking coffee has a comforting effect on me, similar to how some people may turn to smoking when feeling stressed or frustrated.
But how can coffee industry impact the midlife Women. their mental well-beings when they getting out of their comfort zone, even the society?
In this Sat, I visited the London Coffee Festival with my Japanese friend. There’re a lot of coffee brands in UK joined the event. I also visited some coffee festivals and fairs in China before, the main difference between the events in the 2 countries is that in China, most coffee shops and brands brought their latest and special flavored drinks or their peripheral products as gimmicks to attract visitors while in london, most coffee owners only offer their main menus as usual ( Esspreso, Americano, Flat White, Latte, etc. ), but what they really inspired me is most of them bring their brands’ stories to this event to attract visitors to understand what they really want to do.
One of the coffee brands inspired me a lot is “REDEMPTION ROASTERS”. It is the world’s first prison based coffee company. They help inside and outside prison for long-term employment via coffee and hospitality training. At the same time, they partnered with “Working Chance” to support women with convictions into employment.
Another coffee cup packaging company Decent also make me feel impressive. The essential concept at the heart of this company is to “ensure we can unmake everthing we make”. https://decentpackaging.co.uk/pages/about-us
Stakeholders
- Midlife female coffee drinkers (35-45 years old) who are experiencing a midlife crisis in job security and seeking to grow in their personal or professional lives;
- Coffee brand owners: The coffee itself could be sourced from female-led coffee farms or roasters and marketed as a product that empowers women in the coffee industry
- Coffee shop/space
- Organizer of Coffee Community