Calling Out Your Fear

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Does anyone remember being a kid where maybe your biggest goal was to go the highest on the swing set before jumping out and either landing or tumbling onto the ground?

We didn’t think about all the possible ways that it could go wrong: whether a squeaky rickety swing set could hold our weight, what might happen if our arm got caught in the swing as we jumped, or hey those wood chips were not the most comfortable things to land on back in the day. Nope. None of the mattered. What mattered was the feeling of flying as we swung up into the air, and the knowledge of knowing that doing it right made us a legend.

Then of course we grow up, some of us have kids on our own, and we see all the ways in which things can go wrong. We see that first. So we settle in and get comfortable. The scary thing is that in our comfort we see things still that we want to do or try; maybe it’s to travel to another country, maybe it’s to take a risk with your business, or to take a chance on yourself. But immediately, as we’ve been conditioned or programmed, we think about how things can go wrong. A lot of the reasons why we don’t move on something or delay our decision is wrapped around fear.

Fear is an interesting opponent, whereas you can conquer it once and think “I’m set for life because I totally conquered fear last week. We fought on a Wednesday!” But little do you know, fear can take on any form or shape and show up in any aspect of your life. Whether you’ve conquered it before is irrelevant. It’s not so much and one and done thing, as it is a relationship, a constant dance where one leads and the other follows. As we grow both personally and professionally, it’s important to recognize fear when it shows up in our lives. “Oh hey Fear, I see you over there. Want some hummus?” See fear for what it is, acknowledge it and then move on. Don’t let it overtake what you’re trying to do with your career, with your life.

So we want to challenge you, brave reader, to think about your goals for 2018, or maybe for the next 5 years, or maybe for your lifetime. Pick one, and instead of listing all the things that can go wrong, we want you to list all the things that can go right. Add good feelings, beautiful views, and all the senses that can come into play for turning that dream into a reality. Add that list to your fridge or put it on a post-it note.