6. Live Bravely
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
- Nelson Mandela
When we're born, we only have two fears: falling and loud noises. Every other fear we have was learned along the way.
While some fears are more primal in nature because they're actually dangerous, many more are irrational in nature.
We don't have an innate fear of being inadequate, being seen as a fraud, or simply not being enough. We picked that junk up somewhere. Yet that's the type of nonsense that scares us the most.
Most people experience some form of fear conditioning early on. Maybe it's a parent, sibling, teacher, or a friend at school who first introduces the fear that you don't quite measure up, and you let doubt spill into your life. Where it comes from is less important than realizing it's there.
By the time I started kindergarten at age four, I had learned to ride a bike, tie my shoes and read. Probably not all that impressive or even rare. Except that I learned to do those things completely of my own accord. Not encouraged by anyone.
I wasn't some kind of child prodigy, I was simply scared sh*tless.
I had witnessed my older sister experience some less-than-desirable outcomes. Like the time our dad convinced his frightened, shaking, pig-tailed child that riding a bike was easy. He pushed her little bike as fast as he could run... and let go. I probably don't need to tell you that ended in tears. Hers were from scraped knees. His from laughing so hard, because hurt children were somehow endlessly entertaining.
There's also the time he pushed her so high on the swing set that it tipped over and wasps swarmed out. Dad ran away laughing. My poor sister was left to fend for herself.
Not me. Nope! Never! Not. Gonna. Happen.
I learned real early that the world is a scary place where people laugh at you when you don't know how to cope.
My guard went up. WAY up.
This is likely where my perfectionism is rooted. Ya think? I developed an overwhelming desire to achieve in order to avoid ridicule. I made it my life's purpose.
I sneaked my sister's bike before anyone was awake so I could learn how to ride by myself. I quietly and covertly watched as adults tied their shoes so I could replicate it in privacy. (To this day I have to double knot because I tie shoes like... well like no one showed me how to do it properly.) I intently watched words on the pages of books read aloud until I matched them up and memorized them.
Life continued along this trajectory. Growing up in poverty isn't just about not having money. You live in a completely separate sub-culture. Many of the people in my culture-scape were stressed, struggling and depressed.
My greatest fear growing up was that I wouldn't achieve enough and I'd become a victim of my environment.
As a child I learned how to expertly manage food stamps and make one package of ramen stretch to feed a family of five. But I certainly wasn't learning about what it takes to succeed in school, go to college, or how to network to get a good job. That was a completely different world.
Fear became my primary motivator to seek and achieve a traditional model of success.
So I became a sponge, learning whatever I could from friends, teachers, people on TV, whomever. As long as it was different from where I came from, I was in.
I knew that if I was going to break the cycle, I first needed to understand what to do. Then muster up the courage to face my fear and do it anyways. The problem is that when you are afraid, that can be incredibly difficult to do.
At first, I tried to conquer the fear... make it go away. When that didn't work, I got very comfortable with my fear. Made it my copilot.
Facing my fears from a young age got me an early start on what many people don't realize until much later in life. Fear will always be there. The key is to look it in the face, tell it what's up and do the damn thing anyways. And the more you practice doing that, the more comfortable it becomes.
On more occasions than I care to admit, I have literally looked myself in the mirror and said, ok fear, you ready? Let's do this sh*t.
Once you get into a groove, you begin to realize that what you were so petrified of wasn't really that scary... once you got started. It's the getting started part that sucks. We humans are masters of overthinking a situation until we are paralyzed with fear.
So, how the heck are you supposed to do things that scare the sh*t out of you... if they scare the sh*t out of you?
how to do things that scare the sh*t out of you
Start small. Pick something that's like a block out of your comfort zone. Don't go to the ends of the earth to find something that makes you go full fetal. You'll just reinforce your fear and you'll be convinced that this is a big scary world and you'll just stay home in your PJ's, thank you very much!
It's helpful to remember that the good stuff lives on the other side of fear. Everything you want in life lives outside your comfort zone:
It's also helpful to take right actions to face your fears. It does little good to face a fear that doesn't get you any closer to where you want to go.
After you take a slightly scary right action, try another, and another. Then move on to something incrementally scarier. Keep that up and in no time you'll notice that your comfort zone and sweet spot are moving lines, continually gaining a wider and wider radius. Soon you won't even recognize the scared little twit you used to be. :)
The trick is simply coming to terms with the fact that fear is part of the deal. And if you aren't feeling any fear, you're probably cruising in your comfort zone. You're not getting any closer to a life you love. You aren't thinking big enough.
If you aren't challenging yourself and doing scary things, it's going to be impossible to determine and cultivate your purpose.