It has taken me a long time to make friends with fear. And I admit there are some days that I really struggle with it.
I don’t know what has created the fears I have of a variety of things. I do know that somewhere I along my life path I had to learn to embrace it because it wasn’t going anywhere. Probably what helped me the most was running competitively because it was there that I had to learn to push myself. This didn’t always go so well, however, I can say that I learned so many of the skills that I parlayed into everything else I have accomplished.
After all, we need to skills that we build– much like building blocks– to get better, to learn, to move forward. We have to start somewhere and then we keep adding, the blocks getting higher, not making a hard wall to climb but making a wall of skills we can use.
The caveat in all this is that it’s so easy to let fear get the best of us. Believe me, I know this well. And it’s the disappointment– repeated many times– that finally taught me I didn’t want to feel that way again. But that also meant I had to teach myself how to overcome it.
Self talk, taking little steps, setting small goals, were all part of embracing fear. And reminding myself that if we break it down, fear is simply not knowing what’s going to happen.
While for multiple reasons I can’t surf at this point in my life (although I am hopeful I will be able to again), surfing taught me a lot about forging past fear. The first time I got on a surfboard was one of the most intimidating things had done. After all, me of all people surfing? But I did it. I was never very good at it but I kept trying, kept reminding myself to be respectful of Mother Nature or she’ll teach you a lesson (she taught me a significant one once when I allowed the wave to get between my surfboard and me and the board walloped me in the face).
Even though I can’t surf now, I use what surfing taught me to do other things in my life as I build Chelle Summer, as I write more books and market them, wanting people to read them and enjoy them. We all have fear, but the key is, how can we use it to help us go forward?