You don’t need ten steps to conquer your fear of failing. You need only one: Do one thing you are afraid of today. Just one.
Don’t look at the mountain ahead of you with all of its consequences and mistakes and inadequacies. Just do that one thing that is scary to you. Go eat alone. Go take the subway. Go talk to that guy/girl you think is adorable. Go ask for more responsibility at work. Go talk to your significant other about that thing you wish was different in your relationship. Do. Ask. DO SOMETHING.
And then, do that everyday. As long as it takes until you are ready to stare that big fear right in the face and know it’s conquerable.
I want to travel the world. If I would have looked at this as a whole, I would never have come to Italy, because my fears would have completely engulfed me. But, now that I have gone to Italy, conquered the language barrier and the culture clash and the public transportation, I am not just wondering if I can conquer more, I am certain of it. But, you know what has helped me significantly during this time? The time I went and moved to Los Angeles for two months to do a summer internship. This seemingly unrelated aspect of my life has had a formidable influence on the confidence I have in my capabilities.
You don’t have to travel or do big displays of confidence in order to conquer the fear. You just have to start small and shove those butterflies in your stomach into a net. You just have to DO something and that something doesn’t need to be parachuting out of a plane (but if you want to do that, by all means!) or moving across the world or doing something extreme and showy.
Look right in front of you and just begin. Begin something that frightens you and build that up. Stop waiting for the right time to take a big leap. Plan for the leap, ease into it, and then finally, jump.
We put too much pressure on ourselves to make huge differences, instead of taking steps to get to where we want to be. And what we consider huge triumphs are subjective, so don’t use somebody else as your comparison. You don’t have to buy a one way ticket to Italy in order to feel or seem fearless and brave. You can start from where you’re at and build up to your dreams. It’s not all or nothing. It’s about making yourself certain that you’re capable of anything, because, let’s face it, you totally are.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. This is exactly what I needed to read today. I just started college about a month ago, and it seems all of the confidence I had in high school is gone. I’m working on being the fearless girl I was again, and it’s not easy. But, I know deep down I can do it. And today, I just might.
Same thing happened to me when I went to college. Just think of it as an opportunity to reinvent and have a fresh start. Maybe that means piecing back together who you were in high school, but I suspect it will mean becoming someone wiser and more confident than before!
Amen to that, Jaimie! I wanted to visit Italy again and decided to go for the dream of combining my two passions–helping women create the life they want…and traveling to Italy every year. Last month my workshop in the Italian Riviera was fun and each participant did something they feared or that was outside their comfort zone every day, like hike high mountain paths when they were afraid of heights, or take the ferry when they have been seasick in the past. And I stayed in ITALY another 3 weeks to study Italian.
That’s so fantastic. And it’s really nice for me to hear that this is good advice to give people who are struggling with their fear. I would have loved to go to one of your workshops! (But I already told you that in email)
i SO needed this right this second.
Come back and tell me what you conquered today.
Jamie- Excellent post. Everything in life is incremental. What was the biggest contributor to you moving to Italy?
@Allie – stick it out. Just get really involved in something – it gets much easier.
-Adam
The biggest contributor to my move was buying the plane ticket. I knew that all I needed to do was buy that ticket and it took me about 2-3 weeks to actually do it. Once I did though, I felt amazing.
However, the confidence to go was a combination of factors: starting my own company and seeing it thrive and having a pretty good toolbox of accomplishments behind me that proved that even if something is difficult, I can still get through it.
Thanks Jamie!
Love it! You don’t have to set big goals or create a comprehensive business plan or have the future all figured out. Stop scaring yourself with such big stuff! Just take the next small step in the direction of the thing that both excites and scares you!
Cath
Exactly. We see the mountain, but don’t see the small steps. I think that’s why people who train for marathons tend to be very happy and successful. Training for a marathon takes patience and small steps. Not that I’ve ever done a marathon (ha!), but I get why it’s such a big deal to complete one and how it can translate into some big transformation in people’s personal lives.
So true – take some action today, always always good true advice. And I would add, after telling myself this very thing this morning – do it first thing in the morning – before email, before distractions, before have tos.
So I did (write fiction) and it was scary and it didn’t go well and who cares???
Thanks for a brightening day post.
That’s great advice… to get it out of the way in the morning! There’s too much time in the day to talk ourselves out of it…
As someone who lived much of my first two decades suffocated by fear, I’ve found that ONLY way to live is by confronting and battling your fears one by one. Because in the end, the results of most worst case scenarios are not all that different from the results of living a life ruled by fear.
Jennifer – The only way past bad fiction is to keep writing. Best of luck and congrats on conquering that fear.
Exactly. I emailed someone the other day and said “Your regret will be a lot worse than whatever is freaking you out right now.”
Maybe not A LOT worse, but it certainly will be something worse than having actually DONE something and failed. Plus, we learn from failure. We have a hard time learning from regret.
What folks often don’t see is that fear is actually a darn good friend of yours. Fear is there to tell you that you’re about to grow and stretch; it’s there to say “Hang on to your hats and keys, something amazing just might happen.”
Folks do make the mistake that they need to do something big, grand or life changing to ‘conquer’ there fears, but it takes smaller, more graceful, more relevant steps to move forwards with that fear as your friend.
That’s confidence
Excellent post. Totally relevant to me at this moment, but you already know that
And I love what Steve said — “Hang on to your hats and keys, something amazing just might happen.”
I think I’ll keep this post, and that quote in mind, over the next while
Fantastic article and great advice. Rings a bell with a book that I just started reading called the Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley. Basic idea: where you end up depends upon the decisions you choose, and don’t choose, to make TODAY. Have an end in sight and then line up each day, each event, that with that end goal. Make a path to where you want to go…cheers to you!!
This is an awesome site. I found you via http://www.lifewithoutpants.com and I’m loving what I see so far. Looking forward to many more inspiring and thought-provoking posts.
Amazing post Jamie! You captured the internal struggle that I think everyone deals with and conveyed it in such an encouraging and “get off your butt” way! I loved it! My husband and I are moving out of state and I was nervous about my family’s reaction to the news and if I could really do it. But, at the end of the day it was my dream and really believed I could make a better life for myself there. So, I “pushed down the butterflies” and will be moving at the end of the month!
Great challenge.