Action Over Fear

I recently finished an excellent book that was recommended to me by a friend, called "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear," by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of, "Eat, Pray, Love." In the book she talks a lot about how fear is a crippling demon that keeps us from becoming our best selves and achieving our dreams. Fear can keep us from a lot in our lives, and manifests itself in many different ways. It can keep us from writing, or creating art, or going after the dream job, try out for a competition, asking for a promotion, making a new friend, or taking a chance on a relationship. Basically, your fear is something that is always going to be a part of you. 

Elizabeth Gilbert says, “Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a Navy SEAL: He hasn’t slept in days, he’s all hopped up on Red Bull, and he’s liable to shoot at his own shadow in an absurd effort to keep everyone 'safe'.” 

The thing we can do is to learn to live with the fear of rejection or failure and become the master of that fear. To take the fear of not being good enough or failing, and acknowledge that that very well may be the case. However, what is worse, never trying to do anything and wondering what would have happened, or, trying and failing, and then learning from our mistakes and trying again, and eventually succeeding?

“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too,” (Elizabeth Gilbert). When we take a step back, and accept that we have failings and are not perfect, only then can we move forward and take advantage of the time and talents that we have at our fingertips. “Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat,” (Elizabeth Gilbert). The key to beating our fear and becoming people of action is taking small, manageable steps, until we eventually reach our goal. So, if your goal is to write a novel, then first start with the tiny goal of writing a chapter a week, or, even a page or paragraph a day. If you want to enter a competition, then you can practice daily so you can day by day get better and better. Then eventually, after many, many days of practice and trying, will we get to the point that we are better than our fears and have accomplished glorious things in spite of them. Randall K. Bennett has said, "We fail only if we fail to take another faithful step forward." So, let's get out there and take each day as it comes, and conquer our fears and self doubts by doing what we have set out to do and accomplish our goals. We may not be there yet, but we can be closer to our goals than we were yesterday.  Lao Tzu said, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." So, let's set a small, reasonable goal today, to achieve our goals and start today!

What are some things that you are afraid of and how have you overcome them?