Trying out new things for the first time is scary and uncomfortable. I was listening to a podcast yesterday. The author talked about her fear of surfing. Her niece asked if they could take surfing lessons together. She was beyond scared and looked for any excuse that she could find to get out of actually putting the surfboard in the water. Luckily her instructor wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. I am guessing the instructor sees this same fear from people a lot. She went out in the water, got up and got knocked back down with a big wave. She kept doing it until she realized that she was doing it for longer periods before getting knocked down and she was actually having fun! It was inspiring and now she can’t wait to go out and try it again! If she had stayed in her comfort zone she would have missed out on that wonderful experience with her niece!
This made me wonder….how many amazing experiences are we missing out on because we are afraid of what “could” happen? Are we overthinking all of the potential pitfalls and avoiding the things that we need the most? What if we just changed the way we looked at it? What if we looked at that moment of fear and instead of giving into it, we took it as a sign that we are supposed to do that thing instead? These are the opportunities that allow us to learn, grow and experience new things! We get to choose to be bold and brave instead of scared and uncomfortable.
Think about one thing that you are avoiding right now. Will you make a different choice and look at it as something that you would be excited to do instead? Send me a note and let me know what you did! I can’t wait to hear all about it! 🙂