First steps are the hardest. Stepping out is uncomfortable and vulnerable. Especially if you’re not given to vulnerability and letting your guard down like me. I’ve been thinking about doing something very scary, publishing this blog, for a while but it’s always so hard for me to take the first step. Why? Because of fear… fear I’m not going to do it right, fear I won’t be able to convey my message and communicate clearly what I’m trying to say, fear the spirit of the message will be misinterpreted. Fearing no one will even like it and reinforce feelings of inadequacy.
I liken it to a feeling of being caught with my proverbial pants down. For example, have you ever taken your kids to a public bathroom because you just couldn’t hold it a minute longer? You hope for one millisecond your child will behave so you won’t make a spectacle of yourself with your new spontaneous dance moves. Not a lot to ask for right? Only to have the sheer horror of them, in all their childhish giddiness, open the door on you in a crowded restroom where you are on display for all to see? Yeah, me either. That’s how I would describe the feeling of stepping out into unfamiliar territory and doing something I’m not good at or have no experience in. I feel exposed, like a fraud, found out, like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. Like a little girl who puts on her mom’s high heels and pretends to be a grown woman.
It feels daunting and insurmountable because so many other people are doing it and have been doing it longer than you, and better than you for that matter. Ironically when we compare ourselves to others we are usually using their highlight reels as a measuring stick. We see the best parts of their lives and then compare their highs with our lows. Yet, those highlight reels are not the “whole” picture. We don’t see the years of behind the scenes efforts, discipline, sweat equity, frustration and tears they have cried and shed because they felt the same way, insufficient and scared!
The reality is, in a lot of ways we are all the same. We all share similar vulnerabilities and fears. We just present them in different packages. My hot mess looks a little different from yours but we’re all the same. The only real difference between us is our address. Some of us are just a little bit better at convincing others they’re better at it than they really are. And that’s ok, because it’s this very struggle for acceptance and belonging that’s the common denominator binding us all. And you know what? We’re all fellow strugglers. We want to do something great and make a valuable contribution to society in the process. We want to become someone we always hoped we would be and leave this world a better place.
As scary as it may be, at some point we have to take a courageous first step if we are to realize any dream, vision or goal. Pressing through feelings of inadequacy, Theodore Roosevelt’s statement in the “Man in the Arena,” rings louder and truer in my mind. He says “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…”
It’s not the critic who counts…
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
So for now I will feel the fear and do it anyways, entering the arena with a lump in my throat and engaging, albeit simultaneously feeling the vulnerability of risk. You never know…the beauty of first steps is they often lead to unforeseen destinations and possibly to places you never even dreamed of before.
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Rediscovering Resilience 