Feeling Scared? Take the Leap and Do it Anyway
If you’re feeling scared, take the leap and do it anyway. Taking a leap is scary, but fearful living is boring. You can’t allow fear to step in the way of your dreams and success. However, it takes more than only believing in yourself. It takes making your mind up to get out of your comfort zone to face your fears head on with a do it afraid attitude.
To illustrate this point, let’s begin with a story. One day Ann had the fabulous idea of opening up her own plant shop. But she was scared away by all the paperwork. Also, the fear that in the U.S. most small businesses fail in less than five years didn’t help. Everyone had an opinion, which only increased her frustration.
She decided to go for a walk and ran into a woman who was over sixty-years old who struck up a conversation with her. Soon they began chatting about life. After a while, the woman said her biggest regret was not pursuing her dreams. She wished she had taken more risk in life. It wasn’t that this dear sweet lady had a horrible life at all, but she wished she had stepped out of her comfort zone a little more. She often wondered what life would have been like for her if she had chosen to leap anyway without feeling scared.
Playing it Safe
We all have a life to live — responsibilities and hang-ups — but we need not play it safe in the name of fear. Go ahead. Take a leap because you will never know the outcome until you begin to make the climb. How will you know what the result would be if you don’t try? You won’t know until you take a chance. When we do it afraid, all our senses began to activate. The most important thing to do is to start with your why, then create.
Bite off one cookie at a time
Don’t eat the whole cookie at once. Take one bite at a time
There’s no better feeling in the world than the satisfaction of enjoying a nice, straight out of the oven chocolate chip cookie that melts in your mouth. And how do you enjoy eating a cookie? One bite at a time. Going back to our story, Ann can start one step at a time by performing three things:
- Asking herself why she wants to start a plant shop
- Conducting the research on how to open her plant shop such as learning how to create a business plan
- Connecting with other small business owners in her area to learn about their process and how they began
Are there additional action steps Ann will need to do to get her business off the ground? Certainly, but analysis paralysis is real. No need to get stuck on the merry-go round of tireless research and overthinking. And don’t rush. This is not about getting to the finish line the fastest— it’s about taking small actions towards the goal.
Appreciate the Process
You will get to know yourself better when you appreciate the process. This is where the learning and development starts to take form. For example, Ann will learn if she needs to take an online class on how to pitch her ideas to potential investors, read books on entrepreneurship, hire a business coach, etc. During this development stage she may also discover who she truly is. She sees that due to impatience she feels the need to hurry though projects to check them off the list. This is an awesome opportunity for Ann to practice being present and patient without having the urgency to check all the boxes. She will learn that this experience involves prioritizing by taking care of first things first while enjoying the process.
Allow Yourself to Feel Scared
It’s natural to feel afraid when starting something new – especially opening a business. But fear can work in our favor by prompting us to act. The scarier part is never knowing what could have happened if you hadn’t played it safe. For instance, it was scary for me to start this blog. It didn’t happen overnight.
To get over my fears, I set a regular pace for publishing articles on my website. I completed two steps. First, I gathered my research on where to host the blog. Second, I decided on the type of topics I wanted to write about. Third, I had put myself on a schedule. Before I got started, I waited a year out of fear that no one was going to read it. The thought that “everyone has a blog so who is going to read mine” surfaced and on and on. But I turned my fear into action and began to create. I was feeling scared, but I took a leap anyway.
Imagine the Possibilities
I am responsible for my life and I have a choice. I can’t control everything that happens to me, but I for sure can make a choice on how I respond. Self-defeating thoughts can lead to the death of a dream. But if we make the choice to get of our own way, we will find that it’s okay to be shaken. When we shake things up, we’re open to possibilities instead of thoughts of doom. Our thoughts of failure can freely come and go therefore our thoughts of success can too. A couple of questions I often ask myself are “What if it works out?” or “What if I do take this first step?” This is the gateway to a promising adventure.
So, What’s Next?
We can learn a lot from our soon to be plant shop owner, Ann. Now that she has knowledge on how to manage her feelings of fear, write down her action steps and imagine the possibilities of success, she is ready to take the plunge into the water. Sure, the water is cold at first but when she stays in there for a while her temperature begins to adjust. She soon realizes that taking a leap is worth the risk over settling for nothing. And we can do the same.