Wednesday, April 1, 2015

What are you afraid of?



I ask myself this question quite a lot. What am I afraid of? Why am I afraid? Lastly, How can I get over my fear?

What am I afraid of?

Since I became an adult, I do not really fear much. I am not saying I am fearless; I just don’t fear much. I have encountered many things in my 46 years, and I know there are no monsters in the dark.

However, I do fear some things. 

I have stated in previous posts that I want to be a freelance writer. This would require me to put myself out there, and to be completely honest - putting myself out there is very terrifying. I feel completely naked, and that is the most uncomfortable feeling ever.

Just the other night, I received a request for bidding for a job. I was very interested in the job, so I clicked on the link, and it took me to a bidding area. All of a sudden thoughts filled my head - “Who do you think you are, you’re not good enough.” 

I hesitated, and missed the opportunity. I would say another will come along, but that is not the first time I froze.

Why am I afraid?

There are many reasons to be afraid, and logically they are to keep yourself safe. I have been told this is programed into our genes; when we were living in caves, we would try to keep from getting killed from all sorts of dangers. That is our “Fight or Flight” responses.

What I am afraid of, I believe, is failure. I don’t wish to fail at writing.  So this feeling of insecurity is me not wishing to fail - however, by not doing anything at all: I fail.

I see this a lot in other things as well. Some people don’t like to self promote. As a writer, self promotion is a very difficult skill to master. We don’t like to put ourselves out there, because there is the chance of not being accepted.

Once we can get over the feeling of people rejecting us, we can move forward and concur.

How can I get over my fear?

I already touched on this, but lets look at this a little closer. 

When we don’t promote ourselves, we demote ourselves. We become our worst enemy. If we aren’t for us, nobody else can be for us. We need to be our best friend, and we need to promote ourselves.

How do we get to that point where we can get over our fear. I know in previous posts I was talking about my dad teaching me to dive off a diving board. The first time my older brother was to jump off the diving board, he stopped, shaking in fear, closed his eyes, folded his hands and started to pray. Then he would jump in. 

He stopped and prayed every time. But he always jumped. 

Sometimes I need to live by his example. I need to stop, embrace my fear, close my eyes, fold my hands, pray and then jump in.

6 comments:

  1. We are our own worst critics at all times. This is important to know because I have personally found when I write something, dismiss it as crap, and then post it anyway, it is usually something that goes viral. My first critique of myself (because my mind is like an episode of Survivor, where a committee meets in my head every three days and then tries to vote ME off the island) is because it was every bit as bad as I thought it was. Nope, it usually catches fire because everyone loves it. I just shake my head and thank God that I don't always listen to the committee in my head.
    With that said, I find you to be a great and thoughtful writer, and I hope you get over your fear of failure. A good person to think of in these times is Winston Churchill. He was a certified failure and still came back to do great things. His best quote which is my tagline on every e-mail I send on my company e-mail is "Success consists of going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm" remember that and please don't stop writing!

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    1. Thank you for your very kind words, and I love your quote; I have the same committee in my head. A few years ago I gave up writing completely, I promised God I would never write again. Then after about a year, I started getting “Don’t hide your lamp under your bed,” and “Are you burying your talent in the backyard.” After I guess watching several road signs saying to write again, I prayed and asked if this is what I should do. Now, sometimes God needs to apply motivation to me, the same way a donkey gets motivated: by a two by four swung with force, connecting intentionally to the side of my head.  


      There was another reason for this post as well; even though I am terrified of failure - there are those who might read my blog and get inspired to face their own fears. My writing is cathartic mostly, but I also want it to inspire. If what I say can help one person, I would be very happy. I want to write for my audience and if that means stripping myself bare, I will do that. God has allowed me to write, and he puts ideas on my heart, and I write. 


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  2. Listen to the above, you are definately a great writer, go for it take the plunge you will succeed.

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    1. Thank you for the encouragement, I will take that plunge, I'm just praying now. :-)

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  3. I LIKE VERY MUCH THE SCIENTIFIC WAY OF APPROACH BECAUSE YOU HAVE ANALYSED THROUGH THE QUESTIONS ALL THE FEAR ELEMENTS YOU KNOW THEM VERY CLEAR
    BUT I CAN SEE YOU AS PERFECTIONIST BUT NO HUMAN IS 90% IS EXCELLENT ALSO , I AGREE WITH MR CROW TOTALLY THAT YOU ARE THOUGHTFUL WRITER

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    1. I am a perfectionist, and sometimes my worst critic. Thank you for the kind words.

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