No More Being Afraid. Face Your Fears.

How do you feel about spiders? Hmm, not a fan? What about dentists’ drills? Eww! What about signing up for a jogging group when you’ve never run anything in your life? A little intimidated?

Everyone has got fears, ranging from freaking out over multi-legged creepy crawlies to avoiding the doctor’s reminder for your next check-up to feeling like a fool in lycra at the gym.

But is there a difference between the types of fears you feel and the level of importance you allow them to have on your life? What if there are things you wish you could try, that you dream of being able to achieve? IF ONLY you weren’t scared. IF ONLY you weren’t too nervous. IF ONLY you weren’t comparing yourself to someone else who has tried it before you.

WHAT is it you are actually afraid of? WHAT IF you faced your fears?

I’m feeling a bit fired up and feisty this week. 😉 Earlier in the week I had to face some fears of my own. You see, a couple of years ago when I was having a boring check-up at the optometrist, I was very blandly and unemotionally informed that I had an hereditary eye condition, that was so far progressed only a cornea transplant could help me. Oh. 😢

I won’t recount the story surrounding my transplant. I already did that here . The prospect of surgery had me feeling- to borrow a colourful term- completely shit-scared!

What was I afraid of? The risk of the surgery maybe going wrong and me losing my sight? Or just going slowly blind anyway without it? OMG yes to both! BUT… I really didn’t want to lose my eyesight, or driver’s license, or being able to see my kids or the sewing needle I was trying to thread or a million other things.

In the end I did go ahead with the surgery, fearful as I was. I didn’t choose to have this disease. But I did choose to do the hard work (after the surgeon did her hard work!) and do whatever it took to recover. My eyesight in that eye is now excellent. I could never have dreamed that the transplant would make such a huge difference! And so once again, this week I found myself at the eye doctor, scared as hell, being told that the eyesight in my other eye had deteriorated and that I will be needing another transplant in the not-too-distant future. Do I fear going under the surgeon’s knife again? 100%! Does the recovery suck? Without a doubt. Do I think the hard work and stress and pain and fear will be worth being able to see well? Absolutely.

I can’t afford to let fear to prevent me from having life-changing surgery. In fact, I CHOOSE to not let my fears stop me.

Like any living, breathing human being, in my life I’ve had my fair share of experiences that have made me extremely fearful. Choosing to pack up my life in Australia, wave goodbye to family and friends and move across the world to Germany. Choosing to open myself up to the world wide web and start a blog with dreams of turning it into a profitable business. Signing up to skydive. Signing up for a flying lesson. Giving birth to all 3 children via caesarean section. And more.

So what’s the big deal? All of these things made me scared. And doubt myself. And wonder whether I could do as good a job as surely someone else already had. And fill my head with all sorts of negative thoughts, like “What if I suck at this?” and “What if I try and fail?”. Some of them pushed me to the point of feeling like crying and vomiting and running away all at the same time. And I could have let all of those things stop me.

Why not stop? Why not quit on my plans, my hopes, my dreams? Because, as the saying goes “Everything you want is on the other side of fear”. Every single one of those opportunities would never have become reality (the business idea is still a work in progress 😉) if I had let fear rule the day. I did the research and I prepared as best I could. I trusted what my heart was telling me to do and not what I imagined others might say about me. I believed in my ability to figure things out. I did what it took, one step at a time.

So why would you care about me skydiving or having eye surgery or any of these things? Ultimately this is not about what I did. This is about what you too can do in the face of fear.

What are your dreams? What do you wish for yourself and your life? Do you want to: learn how to sew, learn how to ice-skate, run your first 5K, stand up to your snarky sister-in-law, get a massage every month, enrol in higher education, apply for a new job, start a business, or perhaps solve world hunger? Are you scared to start? Scared to try? Worried that your family will try to talk you out of it? Fearful your friends will think it’s all absurd and too grandiose? Think your partner will call you selfish? And possibly the worst of all- What if you fail?!?

So, what if you do fail? Then what? Surely you wouldn’t quit just because the first time you tried something new that you really really wanted, didn’t work out. Would you? It’s not what you teach your kids, is it? No, you’d learn from the experience, alter what needs to be changed, and try again. Right?!?

But here I’m going to propose an alternate question to “What if I fail?”. How about replacing that with “What if it works? What if I succeed?”. Can you imagine it? How would that feel? What would you choose to do next? Who might feel inspired by seeing your success? How completely awesome would it be, if you tried to chase your dream or work towards that next goal or make that change to your habits…and it worked?!?

THAT’S what I am talking about! Just picture yourself wanting something, dreaming of it but being scared of starting or afraid of failing… and Doing.It.Anyway.

So, I have let you in on a few of the things that have scared terrified me over the last years. Now it’s your turn! Do you dare to share something that you want but it frightens the hell out of you? Or what about something your were afraid to try and you did it anyway? It would be so cool to share your inspiring wins and motivational stories here. You never know who might need to hear them today 😊. You got this!!