“Do it scared.”
September has always represented a time of transition to me. The summer ever so slowly fades into fall with the same ease and grace the ocean has to gently meet the sand. The leaves begin to make their grand descent from the tops of trees as vibrant greens to rest on the earth in nostalgic orange and brown. This gradual evolution from summer to fall and cooler weather feels like the appropriate time to commit to a shift.
A shift in mindset, a shift in direction. I am not talking about a temporary “live, laugh, love” situation. I am not talking about a week of consistent social media posts and then a gradual fade. I am talking about committing to something much bigger.
In August, I decided to commit to committing. A laundry list of ideas flooded my brain of what I could commit to in September to boost my confidence as someone launching a business, blogging, and working on a book proposal. What could I commit to for thirty days and where do I start?
Read a chapter a day, eat three meals a day, work on water intake, write, clean the house, yoga, meditate, teach, ease up on processed foods, reach out to a friend every day, post on social media for the business every day. All of which are delightful goals; not one of them resonated with me.
For the first time in my life, I am dreaming big…bigger than anything I have allowed myself to dream before. For the first time ever, I have indestructible dreams.
For September I have committed to showing up. I am proficient in goal setting, but a disaster when it comes to following through. My fears of failure and judgement have grabbed hold of my dreams and ideas and choked them out. I have been holding myself back from leaping into the unknown of my dreams because I have never felt worthy of them.
Do you see the cycle? The pattern?
Big dream – to write a book.
Action – write and begin to organize multiple journal entries, blog posts, outlines and notes. Research writing book proposals, begin taking notes. Seek multiple references.
Daydream about publishing the book and being on “Good Morning America” to discuss how I went from a comatose depressed heap of person to vibrant and alive human being, by doing the work. Daydreaming about my mission to save other people from burnout, for real.
Enter fear stage left.
Fear says, “you will fail. You will not publish anything. You will be one of those people that talk and talk about your dreams and goals and abandon them; never finishing one, you are not good enough. Every big dream you have ever had has been infiltrated by reality and your limitations. Remember? This is how it goes”.
This is how I have allowed fear to take the driver’s seat, tossing me out of vehicle altogether.
Self-doubt; judgement.
Who am I to write a daily blog? Who am I to submit a book proposal? Who am I to enter the wellness world, trying to heal people? What if I fade into obscurity? What if I fall flat on my face? What if I fly? What if I succeed? When you have relied on fear as a crutch, a justification, an “out” for your entire life, success becomes just as terrifying as failure. Fear and failure have become easier to accept.
My life’s mission is to work with human beings from age two to two hundred and share with them the joys of being alive. I want to help people see the beautiful aspects of our world that can be cruel and uninviting. I want to promote a business that will be an agency of change. I want to be and promote the change that I want to see in the world, in other human beings.
Trying to take an idea for a business from your head, all the way to fruition is a lot like trying to force a deflated balloon to act like a kite. Running, sometimes looking back, hoping the balloon and the air meet at the perfect moment and the air floats the balloon effortlessly. At least this is how I thought it would all shake out. Turns out, you need to blow up the balloon first before you can try and let it take flight. However, can you blow up a balloon with deflated lungs? How can you inflate something such as a balloon when you don’t have enough air to spare? (If you know Seinfeld, you know this reference).
Showing up means showing up for me first. Showing up means continuing to do the work that I was put on this earth to do, in spite of crippling fear, because of crippling fear. If I am scared, then there are a lot of other people out there sitting on beautiful and brilliant ideas, terrified. One of my yoga teacher mentors, Dana Wilcox, recognizing and acknowledging the fear within all of us to teach, said to our class, “do it scared”.
“Do.It.Scared.”
Day one is complete. (written 9/2/24)