Photo by Drew Graham on Unsplash

Recently I’ve been reflecting on 2019 and I used my personal Instagram posts to build a timeline of where I was and what was happening in life at that period, I felt that a reflection was necessary before I could fully embrace 2020. I listed all of my new goals but I also wanted to first hold myself completely accountable for all the things I did not accomplish in 2019.

Fear was the main reoccurring theme once I started to evaluate most of my failed aspirations. I chuckled at first but then I began looking more closely at all the things that I feared and how elegantly I had concealed these fears by calling them anything but fear. How many times have we said to ourselves or heard others give half-ass excuses as to why they were not going to indulge in something that would be totally beneficial to them? It usually sounds something like “Oh I don’t like____ because it has never piqued my interest”, or “It’s not really my thing”. Never have I thought to myself - I am unsure about this particular thing because I am afraid, which would be the most honest thought since this is what applies more often than not.

I realized years ago that I was afraid of seemingly simple things and always laughed at myself about it. Can I laugh the fear away? well, obviously not since I am here today in the year 2020 writing this post. I began thinking about how interesting being fearful was plus It has definitely become the norm to be fearful since it is our safety blanket. Fear is now comfortable and ironically being fearless had become the new awkward. I kept having this reoccurring dream where I would be having fun on a warm and sunny beach, then in a split second the clouds would come rolling in on a now dark sky, I would try to search for my belongings on the sand but I could never find my shoes or bag fast enough to escape the dreadful thunder and lightning that seemed to be extending all the way down to the water. I kept thinking to myself - run,all I can do is run, I have “ran” myself awake around three times (that I know of). The most recent nightmare was so realistic that it took me the whole day to completely calm down, It lead me to think very deeply about fear.

It is important to be aware that we cannot face fears that we cannot identify. It is also important to note that we can never completely eliminate fear (unless that part of your brain doesn’t work and in that case you have other problems to worry about). Fear is a part of who we are but we do not have to let it guide us or determine how we make decisions. I have found that it is so refreshing to admit to myself that I am afraid because as soon as I do this I can also tell myself to be brave. I think we can all use this method to move forward whenever we get paralyzed and resort to searching for a word to hide fear.

Instead of - I don’t think _____ will work, try saying to yourself, I am afraid _____ will not work, then immediately say to yourself, there is no need to be afraid, just try. One fear I had as a child that I still have today is the fear of being perceived as stupid. Everyone knows the statement - There is no such thing as a stupid question. But we’ve all heard our share of stupid questions so we do our best to not be the one asking. Ask your question, analyze the response, if you have a follow up question try to figure out if the first answer offers any clue to your follow up, if yes - you may not need to ask it.

When making a request we should always remember that there’s a chance that the reply will be no and if so what’s next? This is the question that I try to ask now instead of not asking anything at all out of the fear that the reply will be negative.

Here’s the biggest reason you need to need to overcome your fear - Fears are the biggest time wasters, and joy robbers in the universe and because we spend a lot of time being fearful and then lying about it to ourselves, we really can’t measure the enormity of our fearful activities.

No one is asking you to be brave every second of every day but be brave and take the initiative when you deem it necessary. Start tomorrow, push for your goals when the time is right and stand tall for what you believe in when you see something that’s going wrong. No one has to give you permission. ~