Working through a period of change, transition and challenge will always involve some level of fear or worry. That it’s not going to work out. That you can’t handle it. That it will get the better of you.
Because no one likes to look like a fool, or even worse – a failure! This is the point when many people start looping in a perfectionist type of thinking where they feel a strong need to prepare to within an inch of the situation.
Most of us (including yours truly) have a way of coming up with endless cleaver ways of not doing the thing that we know we need to do. Regardless if it’s a great and exciting thing that will open new doors for us or a really challenging thing we need to tick off our list and rather see the back of. We keep researching, thinking and generally waiting for the courage to find us so we can then go and do, launch or act on the BIG scary thing.
The thing we need to remember though is that however well we prepare, it will NEVER be enough to feel absolute confidence. It will still be scary, unfamiliar and a bit weird. Take public speaking for example. It takes courage to say yes to the opportunity in the first place. But every single presenter I know has had moments when they doubt, fear or feel altogether overwhelmed before a big presentation. Why am I doing this again? Am I crazy? Why should they want to listen to me? Even if they prepare, practise and know their topic inside and out. The confidence in a speaker though only comes from doing it over and over again. Practise may not make perfect. But it’s pretty darn good!
True confidence comes from doing the thing that you’re desperately trying to avoid, but actually really want. Courage can temporarily show up to help you take that first step, but in order to actually feel confident you need the ultimate proof and this only shows up when the deed is done.
Fear can hold us back from so many things and more often than not the thing that scares us is way smaller and more manageable in real life compared to what it was in our head. The best way to get over the fear is to go out and find the support you need to do the scary thing. You’d be surprised how manageable it actually is when you have the right people and resources to support you.
And if all else fails, you may want to adapt my favourite belief of all time: “I can handle anything that comes my way“. Because both you and I know that you can.
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