It’s a strange feeling when you meet someone with balls big enough to face her fears. Monica Leonelle did it. Up until very recently she had a successful blog and thousands of followers on Twitter. Then a few days ago I received this email:
‘On Monday, January 16th, I’m pressing delete on any online profiles or websites that don’t match my current goals. One of those places is this blog and all the posts on it. While blogging has given me a lot over the years, it’s not a good fit anymore. To move forward, I have to press delete’.
I thought: ‘Oh my god, she’s got such a good fan base. Is she going to throw away all the nice things she’s built in 5 years??’. Right after that, I also thought: ‘Jeeez, and when exactly did I become such a pussy?’. And there was my lesson. Monica – a girl I’ve never spoken to – showed me in less than 2 seconds that I was trapped in a cage, and was afraid to get out.
Trapped in the cage
What you have to keep in mind is that the cage may have been created by others, but you’re the one who lives in it. Your parents created it when they told you what’s good or bad, your teachers when they chose what you should learn, your friends when they told you what’s cool and what’s not. An entire cage made of someone else’s fears has been built around you. At some point, those same fears became yours, too. And that’s when you started running away from them. Monica Leonelle instead decided her fears were preventing her from achieving certain goals, so she jumped right into them.
My own fears
After reading what Monica did, I decided to follow her example and do something about my own fears. Here are three that prevented me from doing something new in the past few months:
1. I’m afraid people will not like my blog articles
I fear that very much. This prevented me from seeking out my tribe and do work that matters to them. Monica’s readers dropped after she closed her blog – as she expected – but those who will stick with her in the end are the people of her tribe. Her work matters to them. Doing work that matters is what I want, too.
Being afraid people don’t like you makes you want to please everybody. This will lead you to do average work for average people. Unfortunately, today average is over.
Next on my list: find my tribe and start a conversation.
2. I’m afraid interesting people will think I’m not interesting
That’s the oldest insecurity in the world. Funny thing is, to protect myself I ended up NOT contacting interesting people (apart from Monica and Lindsay Blackwell, whose style I find very interesting). But getting in touch with Seth Godin? No way.
Now that I think about it, it’s even worse. I actually ended up contacting people I didn’t even like. People who keep saying you should work more on your CV and cover letter. People who tell you how things are, but not how to change them.
Next on my list: contacting people who change things. See how I can help them do that.
3. I’m afraid changing things is too big of a goal
Here’s the thing. I write about work and career but I disregard 90% of what I see on other career blogs because it’s either idiotic or antique news (the one I hate the most is careerrealism, don’t even get me started on that). The reason many like those blogs is that they explain how things work in the corporate environment. I don’t. I don’t want to explain how things work today. I want to change it. Only, it seems an awfully big goal for someone with a full time job. Result, I didn’t even try.
Next on my list: put my ideas out there and tell people why I want to change things.
So there you go. Here are three fears of mine that prevented me from doing something remarkable so far. I wish they were the only ones, but we all know they are not. I have a million more that kill stuff I could do. The good thing is, Monica’s email arrived at the right time. At my breaking point. Somehow, now I’m looking forward to jumping into my fears. Hey, if worst comes to worst at least I’ll have a nice story to tell my friends. How I tried to change things and failed.
What about you? What’s the number one fear that prevented you from doing something remarkable?
No related posts.
Bit you are not afraid to talk about your fears, to put it out there – that’s the half of success I believe!
Yeah. The easy half, I’m afraid. But it still counts!
Congratulations on deciding to face your fears and decide to change to better align with your goals. I just read an interesting quote today, “the worst decision is indecision.” Many people are comfortable in their lives even though their lives are not fulfilling because they can’t make the decision to change. A blog I have been following for about 6 months is orrinwoodward.blogharbor.com. His insights go against the flow of the main stream. but who is to say what is the main stream? His blog talks about the basic principles that made our country great and that today’s society is devaluing these principles and now see what kind of a pickle we are in.
Nice quote Todd. Very true. I’ll check out that blog.
Alex you rock! Facing your fears gives me and others the courage to do the same. Thank you, and keep doing what you’re doing.
Hey Trisha, thank you! Let’s see how it’s gonna work out now!