Doing Hard Things

Stormy skies aren’t always scary, right?

I’ve been having trouble with procrastination lately.   I’m known as a highly responsible, never-let-anyone-down kind of person.  But I have a harder time keeping commitments to myself.

I was beating myself up about it, which of course is never helpful but then I realized – this is hard stuff!  It might not seem like it, because it’s all pretty ordinary – call people to let them know about my new business, work on my website – but these things represent a major shift for me.  I’ve realized that my usual approach to life wasn’t going to work for me anymore, and that knowledge created panic!

What if I show up (as my true self) and nobody likes me?

What if I put all this work into a new endeavor and I fail?

Well, my logical mind has rational answers for these questions, but the part of me who lives with those fears is never quite convinced.  What we all want is to be appreciated for who we are.  And that can be scary for a lot of us.

Pushing through this fear and showing up anyway is the only way to start shifting things into alignment.  And it’s okay if everyone doesn’t like you; the ones who will connect with you the deepest won’t even find you until you put yourself out there.

And failure (deep breaths) is okay.  This is a hard one for me.  I’ve been fortunate – or perhaps unfortunate? – to not have faced a lot of challenges in my life, so the idea that it’s okay to screw up is one that I’m still learning to appreciate.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?