June 16, 2015 4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Have you ever looked back on your life and started to realize that some of your biggest goals and dreams just vanished? Not because you didn’t care about them anymore, but because you never took that initial step to get started on pursuing them wholeheartedly. Life then just started to pass you by.

Everywhere I go and speak there is always a select handful of people who come up to me afterwards describing a similar scenario as to the one I mentioned above.

Related: Go Ahead, Destroy Your Comfort Zone

As a matter of fact, this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., says it all: “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.”

What a chilling statement.

There could be a hundred different reasons as to why someone doesn’t take the proper action that is required to get their goal or dream off the ground and up and running, but more times than not it’s the lie that your comfort zone is feeding you.

Every day, people from all walks of life have the opportunity to do what’s easy, listening to the lie of their comfort zones, or to do what’s necessary, which more than likely are the things that they do not want to do. From the time we wake up in the morning, to what we eat for breakfast, and how we go about the rest of our day, our comfort zones will be talking to us.

Related: Your Comfort Zone Is Killing Your Success

Everyone wants to be great. I can honestly say I have never met anyone who doesn’t want to feel good about themselves and feel as if they are a success in the game of life. Unfortunately, wanting to be successful and actually being successful are two completely different things, and a great determining factor of success a majority of the time is if a person is paralyzed by comfort or conquering comfort.

Entrepreneurs and business owners must get comfortable with being uncomfortable very quickly, or else there is virtually no chance to withstand the pressure and demands that it requires to be in business for yourself and manage others.

It really saddens me when I see someone fall into the extremely dangerous trap of comfort, and watch them bundle up their potential and push it off to the side as life passes them by. That’s the true definition of dying at the age of 25 but not getting buried until 75.

Or, as Holmes says, “Die with their music still in them.”

One of the more sad times in my life came when someone very dear to me died at a very young age due to a massive heart attack. The death alone was heartbreaking, but even more heartbreaking was thinking about all of the things he said he was going to do and accomplish, but ended up bringing those passions and dreams to the grave with him. It wasn’t a lack of skill, time or resources that prevented him from actually getting started on those things, but the cancerous word “comfort.”

Every day someone heads to the grave with their music still in them, with an unlimited amount of potential not touched, all because they let their comfort zone kill them. Please don’t let your comfort zone kill you and head to your grave with your music still in you. Greatness requires courage. It requires you to conquer comfort every single day of your life.

Related: Are You Ready to Start Conquering Your Dangerous Addiction to Comfort?