Do It Scared
So I have this ambition to write a book about transition. I’m good at ambition – I’m ambitious about a lot of things. But most of those things are within my grasp, private, typical. Or if they aren’t, no one knows about them anyway, so they don’t know that I failed.
In this, success or failure is not something I can call. It’s something others will call. Let me tell you: that terrifies me.
So I find excuses not to write. The house is dirty. I’m tired. I don’t have enough time to really get into it right now. I need to do this project for work instead. I should write a blog post (ahem).
Why? I’m afraid that when I sit down, nothing will come. Or I’ll look at it and say, “What on earth am I even trying to say here? This doesn’t make sense!” Or I won’t have enough material. Or maybe, after all my hard work, it will still fail.
I think I keep hoping that it will magically write itself. I’m discovering that my voice recorder on my phone is my best writing friend – this book might just be written in 30 second sound bites that hit me on the 417 or in the last waking moments of the day. Still, somehow those thoughts need to get organized and put down on actual paper, and that is what I have on my plan this morning.
Which brings me back to scared. But I’ve decided that my motto right now is “do it scared.” Stop waiting to feel confident or motivated or full of ideas or like you aren’t terrified to make this dream a reality. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing it despite the fear.
What are you doing scared today?