The Fear to Try

Along your journey you’re bound to come across at least one person who tells you about fear-based thoughts and love-based thoughts. Fear based thoughts are the feelings that keep you from pursuing your dream, stepping out of your comfort zone or being the real you. Whereas love-based thoughts are the ones that drive you right to it.

If you’re big on how the universe provides for us, and things like gratitude and manifestation, I urge you to look into fear/love-based thoughts- there are heaps of people out there that can explain it better than I can, and you should be following them, because they have a lot of wisdom to share.

If you’re not in that mind space, don’t worry- I’m not about to go hippy dippy on you. I just want you to think about this: If you don’t believe in how “fear-based thoughts” affect your day to day, how do you feel about the idea that fears do. Even if you don’t live by the mantra that what you think creates your reality, you have to admit that the view you get from the top of the cliff is going to be different if you’re 20 feet back from the edge- afraid that you might fall.

Now I understand that everyone has their own fears for their own reasons, and I’m not about to tell you all to “get over it”, but I’m noticing a trend in fears, and I’ve found that there is a stand out fear that gets to us all at one point or another…

The fear to TRY.

Kim chance recently did a video with her fellow Electric Eighteens, Advice for Aspiring Writers. Now normally I don’t like to take my ideas from someone else’s blog/vlog, because I want this blog to be really authentic to what’s on my mind and what I think you guys want to read. But since the video was aimed at aspiring authors- and so is this blog- the thought occurred to me…. what would my advice be? And it comes down to one thing:

TRY.

I’m not going to tell you to do a business degree because you need experience in business to self-publish. Or to spend weeks upon months researching the publishing industry, in order to thrive as a traditionally published author. Nor will I tell you that the only way to make your book successful would be to put a lot of time and effort into marketing.

All that advice is plenty true. But its also terrifying for someone starting out. A lot of the advice you get out there is very overwhelming and stressful if you don’t know what you’re doing or where to start. But there is one place to start with everything in writing that is the exactly the same: square 1. The point at the beginning where you have an idea, and you decide to TRY it.

Try outlining. Try drafting. Try researching publishing or marketing or social media. Try developing your writing skills, or your public speaking skills, or your photography skills- if you’re planning to wow your audience on Instagram. Try reaching out to the writing community and making friends, finding a critique partner, or putting feelers out for betas.

So many people are afraid to try. We let the fear that something will go wrong, or just won’t work, stop us from giving it a go. Yes, writing, and everything that comes with it, can be daunting. But don’t let the fear of what could go wrong- or maybe even right- stop you from TRYING. If you don’t want to leap forward, take little baby steps and see how it feels. Check in with yourself to make sure you’re making the right choices for your passion and your career before you move ahead. We don’t always have to do everything, all at once, at the speed of light. We are allowed to dip our toe in the water and see how it feels. But don’t let the fear that a shark might be in the deep end stop you from wiggling your tootsies in the shallow end. Break down big stuff into smaller chunks, seek advice or help, and take your time if you need to.

But no matter what, don’t let the fear win. Put yourself out there. Challenge yourself.

TRY.

#Writing #SelfReflection