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Hey my friends. So last week at my day job, they had this speaker come. Her name was Laura Jones. She was a grit specialist. So they had her come talk about grit and leadership. And she had grit broken down into this acronym of like, G is for get it done. R is for reframe, I is for impact others, and T is for take responsibility. She talked about grit being a muscle that we can exercise and build and strengthen over time with practice. She has a book called Hunt or be Hunted, which I haven't read yet, but it is on my to read shelf. But the one word that kept coming up in her presentation that I took issue with was fearless. Becoming fearles. I take issue with that because if you're anything like me, fearless isn't an option. I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder a few years ago, and anxiety had been one of the few constants in my life. And maybe there are people out there who are fearless, but it sure as fuck isn't me. I'm scared all of the time. And that fear hasn't stopped me either. I think it is not useful to talk about being fearless because for many of us that probably isn't an option. What I think would be better to talk about is not letting fear get in the way. If you're going to do anything worthwhile, you're probably gonna have to do it scared. That's how it is for me. Everything I've ever achieved, everything I've ever done has been done scared. Because if I wait until I'm not scared before doing something, I will die doing nothing. Because the only way I'm not scared is if I'm dead. One of the most useful things for me is having learned how to feel the fear and just do it anyway. How to take action while being scared shitless. I think there's like this new agey attitude or belief that if something feels bad, we shouldn't do it. Or if it feels bad, something is wrong. And there are definitely times where that is true. But most of the time, unless you are actually in a legitimately dangerous situation, it won't be. If something isn't easy or doesn't come naturally to you, it's easy to think oh, I'm just not meant to do this thing. Or it just isn't aligned for me. And that is rarely, if ever, true. Doing new things, learning new skills, pursuing goals, all of those things feel fucking awful. And just because it feels awful doesn't mean you should quit. Leaving my marriage was something that felt completely, utterly horrible. I was scared to death. Like I was leaving my house in my packed car to go to my grandma's to stay and my legs were shaking so bad that I could barely drive. It felt fucking awful. I was so scared of what was going to happen next. There was so much uncertainty. I had so much self doubt like could I even survive on my own? Am I making a mistake? What the hell am I doing? Those are the things that were going through my head. It was some of the worst feelings I've ever had. And none of those feelings were an indication that I should stop or that I wasn't doing the right thing. I think we make the mistake of thinking sometimes that the right thing will always feel good. It won't. Sometimes the right thing will be the hardest thing. Sometimes it will be the most painful thing. It might be the right thing to leave a relationship. Doesn't mean that it will be easy to do so. Doesn't mean that it won't hurt. It does mean that just because it feels bad doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Anything that involves growth feels bad. Learning feels awful. I hear people say they love learning and I know they're full of shit because real learning sucks. It feels awful. When I was learning to speak Chinese, I had to feel like a fucking idiot all the time. I had to feel stupid and keep going and not quit just because I was sucking. To get good at something, anything, you must first be bad at it. Which feels pretty bad actually. When you start to set boundaries for yourself for the first time, it's gonna feel really fucking awful. You're gonna feel like you're a monster. You're gonna feel like the meanest person on the planet. You're gonna feel like you're no better than your ex. All because it will be new to you. Because it will be so completely opposite of what you were used to. When you're used to being a doormat, setting boundaries feels monstrous. And you will be bad at it. Sometimes you will buckle under and you'll have to regroup and reassert yourself. And that's okay. It's part of the process. It doesn't mean you should stop. It doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. It just means you are learning a new skill. That's it. And at some point it won't feel like that anymore. But you have to stick with it long enough and build the skill to get to that point. One of the most important things to learn in life is how to let yourself feel bad without doing anything about it. And that's really hard. But it is so necessary for anything you do in life because everything that is worthwhile involves some sort of discomfort. I've been practicing this for years and I still struggle with it. I still have times where I just want to fix it. And I have to keep reminding myself over and over again that yeah, this feels fucking awful and nothing has gone wrong. There is nothing here for me to fix, because nothing has gone wrong. This is just how it feels right now. You will have to decide what is more important to you: your discomfort or what you are trying to achieve. What is more
important to me:
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learning Chinese or not feeling like an idiot? What is more important to me: learning to set boundaries for myself or not feeling some feelings I don't like? That's really what it boils down to. Don't let your fear or your anxiety or your discomfort be more important than the thing you're trying to achieve. A book I really liked that talks about this topic is called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways by Susan Jeffers. I also think Mindset by Carol Dweck is really good for this topic too. I'll put links to those books in the show notes. Also, you can always bring this to a coaching session with me and we can work on it together. The link to book a session will also be in the show notes. All right, my friends, feel the fear and do it anyway. Until next time, be well