How to find the confidence and courage to start something new
From experience, starting something new takes a lot more courage than we might think.
I think all of us have things that we want to do, ideas that we’d like to build, plans we’d like to try out and potential that we feel building inside of us that we want to unleash.
Yet, for so many of us, we go through this lifetime not allowing our full potential the room to breathe. It’s like we smother the fire inside of us, dampening it down rather than taking the risk of letting it loose on the world.
I love writing about fear because it’s a constant in my life and I’m always working through it. In particular, the fear of being seen and the fear of the unknown, are my two loyal companions that are always with me, testing my courage.
The fear of success
Sometimes, it’s the fear of what we could become that stops us from starting.
I know this sounds crazy but we take comfort in the familiar. It’s the future and the unknown which is so fearful for us. And for many of us, it’s not the fear of failure that is the driving force that stops us from unleashing ourselves on the world, it’s the fear of success.
So why is the fear of success so relevant?
If anyone has seen the film Coach Carter (and if you haven’t I highly recommend it, it’s phenomenal) then you might remember this quote about fear: “our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”
It is our light, our potential and our brilliance that we most fear, not the darkness, not the failure and not the pain. It can be a lot to get your head around this as we usually associate the difficulty in starting something new with a fear of failure, but in fact, it’s really the fear that we’ll confront our true magnificence and the fear of how we will handle this version of ourselves that stops us from starting.
So, when thinking about starting something new, it’s worth considering what might happen if you start, and make a list of all the potential positive outcomes, not the negative ones.
We need to get used to seeing what we’re capable of, written down on paper, so we can really start to feel the energy and embrace it, rather than be scared of it.
The fear of failure
Of course, the fear of failure is also a big obstacle that we can’t ignore. It can be really hard to take a risk, even if it’s a small one, if our fear of a negative outcome overwhelms us.
We might also have a previous traumatic experience related to starting something new that makes us freeze at the idea of starting it again, and that’s completely normal. The trick is to recognise it, work through it and love yourself for the experiences you went through, rather than stay in a cycle of fear, shame and blame.
Here’s a little story for you that might help. I used to love the gym. In my mid-twenties I was obsessed and I eventually started working for a fitness company where I stayed for almost four years. But during this time I became burnt out from constantly pushing myself at work, in the gym and in my life.
So, for the last 7 years I hadn’t been in a gym. I was just doing yoga, walking and gentle exercise. But in my heart I wanted to sweat, I wanted to feel the burn and I wanted to build a strong and capable body. When I moved to Cambridge I even joined a gym but for 4 months I was in freeze mode and couldn’t go.
The fear of burning out again and pushing my body too hard, leading to physical and emotional exhaustion, was too great and it locked me up from doing the thing that I wanted to do.
Walk up to fear and shake its hand
I realised that the trauma of burning out was blocking me from my potential. The fear was an obstacle in the way of my health, vitality, strength, vibrance and power.
So, one day, I had a friend take me to the gym and all of my fear vanished as soon as I was there, doing it. And this is how it works: when you walk up to the fear it disappears because it was never real in the first place. It’s only real in our minds.
Yet, the one thing that we all need to watch out for is fear in disguise, and the best disguise fear rides with is self-sabotage.
We all have self-sabotaging behaviours, which is one of my favourite things to help people clear in Divine Healing sessions, but they can have a real impact on our lives without us even being conscious of them.
One of the biggest ones, and one we’re all familiar with, is procrastination. Procrastination is the enemy of productivity. We procrastinate in a myriad of creative ways, social media scrolling, watching TV, eating, drinking, going out, staying in, yet the reason behind it is always the same.
Essentially, we procrastinate because we’re scared.
It’s an avoidance tactic so we don’t have to confront the fear. I know I avoid writing because I’m scared I won’t write anything good. I also know that I avoid looking at my bank account because I’m scared to see how much I have left in my bank.
Your power lies in your awareness of your fear
Ironically, procrastination never works, it only keeps that thing that you’re avoiding feeling at bay for a short time, but it will keep on bugging you until you do it.
And the best thing is, once you’ve done it you feel so empowered and so good. Every time you do something that scares you your self-esteem grows and expands.
The trick to starting something new is to find out what feeling you’re trying to avoid by putting that thing off.
So, be honest with yourself. What is it really that’s stopping you from starting? Is it fear of failure, is it fear of confronting your awesomeness, is it a fear of emotional pain, embarrassment, self-judgement or perhaps a fear of not doing it well enough?
Once you have awareness of the driving forces behind your difficulty in starting something new you have the ability to do something about it which is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself.
So, take some courage, take some time, and be compassionate with yourself as you learn about yourself and what you're truly capable of. Then, when you’re ready, you can walk up to those things that you’re most afraid of and start seeing what’s on the other side.
And I promise you, it’s a really wonderful view.
Want to receive the latest blog posts straight to your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll also receive your FREE ‘Discover Your Fear Saboteur’ guide, the ultimate guide to identifying the fear sabotaging your potential!
