Fear


Recently, I picked up a book again. It's called The Fear Book and it's by Cheri Huber. It's a quick read, but it is so wise. In reading this book, I learned a lot. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Our world shrinks when we are paralyzed by fear of making mistakes, fear of doing something wrong. But if we simply take a step and see what happens, our world opens a little bit. Then we can take another step. Every step enlarges our view; everything we do shows us something.” (pg 12)
I love this quote, it reminds me that the fear of making a mistake is not a good enough reason not to forge ahead. It is a reminder that something can seem scary or hard, but we don't know that until we take that next step to see what happens. I am finding this also helps me with my confidence. At one time, I expected confidence to come from outside sources, then at one point, I expected it to come from inside sources, but lately, I've found that I build confidence as I do the little things, one step at a time. Sometimes these little things challenge me, sometimes they even scare me. But if I do them, knowing they will get me where I want to go, I find that my confidence increases, and my fear decreases.

“We could talk for hours, days, lifetimes about what is wrong, what could happen, what won't work. Don't do it. Instead, take a step. Look around see where you are, and see what your next step will be. Take that step, see where you are, and the next step becomes clear.” (pg 14)
Again she's talking about the fear of what COULD happen. A lot of us spend our time making up stories in our mind about any of several potential outcomes, only to find out that none of those actually come to fruition. It's so true that as you take one step, you can more clearly see the next step. Many of us get caught up in the overwhelming feeling that to get to our goal, we have to do a thousand things. That may be true. But right now, at this very moment, you can't do a thousand things. That is impossible. However, you can do the next thing, and then the next, and then the next.

“Sitting around thinking about what won't work is like a scientist deciding the result of an experiment beforehand-not a way to learn anything. If we really want to know how something is, or what is possible, we plunge ahead. We might not find what we thought we would find, but we'll find something.” (pg 16)
This is soo helpful because it's a reminder to me that we can't get anything out of focusing on what we don't want. This is true of our relationships, of our business ideas, of our money. Focusing on everything that is wrong, could be wrong, or what we think will be wrong, is how we get more of that thing. More of that problem, more of that fear. “We may not find what we thought we would find, but we'll find something.” There's an excitement to that statement. There's a freedom in that. When we get to that point, and we find not exactly what we thought we would. That's okay too. That other thing might be even more wonderful than what we thought, but we will never know unless we try, unless we force past that feeling of fear and just go for it.



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