Colloquially, the comfort zone is often referred to as an area in which one has settled. People can tend to stay in their comfort zone, cutting themselves off from new experiences and opportunities.
Leaving your comfort zone is definitely important, but you have to have one for that first. Develop your own style and establish routines in your work. Only then you can leave it.
I know photographers who shoot everything: Portraits, events, weddings, sports, babies. To me that's a bit weird. I am a fan of specialization myself, so that you can concentrate more intensively on one subject and try to do one thing really well.
If you want to overtake you have to leave your lane.
You can also very well leave your comfort zone within your genre. And there is nothing against trying out a new area. You can only benefit from it, as with any broadening of horizons. For me, this could be shooting black and white instead of color, for example.
I encourage every photographer to try out shooting nudes, if this is a topic of interest. There's absolutely nothing against it and you should also not be frustrated if your first shoot doesn't make it into Playboy yet.
Sometimes I give one-to-one coachings to people who want to learn how I work. I don't advertise this as I barely do such coachings. But I would like to mention this once as not everyone might be aware of it. I prefer to do such coachings in good locations and set up as a real production and not just a two hours shoot. This means, there is a good model on set and the conditions are the same as with a production for Playboy.
Do your thing
Most important is that you don't look too much left and right but listen to your gut feeling. I have learned to focus on my inner feelings more and it helps me a lot.
Leaving the comfort zone is great whenever you feel stuck at what you do at the moment.