Stepping out of Fear

Fear, the emotion we allow to rule the world. The fear of not fitting in, the fear of being different, the fear of failure seems to be a common emotion every culture shares and perhaps allow to rule our choices. For example, how often do we order the drink everyone else is ordering? How often do we make sure to carry the designer purse, to wear the Jimmy Choo heels? Or how often do we copy the look of a celebrity or influencer? Did you ever think that maybe we follow the lead of others because we are afraid of being who we really are?

Not long ago, I was catching up with a friend. Our conversation covered the usual, what we had been doing, our family, and our pets. As we began to talk about our hopes and dreams, fear began to creep into the conversation. As I listened, I heard nothing but fear. Why a person wasn’t as far in their journey as another person, why someone was seeming to accomplish more, and how did some know the risk was worth taking? Not being able to know with certainty the outcome would be successful, fear held them back.

As I listened, I started to wonder, how do we learn to step out of fear? Why do we allow fear to rule us? Why are there set paths with set milestones? Why can’t everyone live life at their own pace? As a society, we tell our high school juniors and seniors to decide what they want to do with their lives. Life-altering decisions are made at 18 when we don’t even know who we are. Knowing what we want in life, knowing who we want to be, that knowledge doesn’t come for decades.

Having the ability to know who we are, what we want comes from the mistakes and lessons of our youth. The quiet confidence to make a decision and not care what others think or feel the need to justify ourselves comes from the scars of life, what many call failure, but in reality, are lessons learned. The ability to stare fear in the face, not allowing it to affect you, is a strength that comes from experience, from falling on our faces, hitting rock bottom and starting over, from knowing we can overcome failure, that our lives are not defined by the moments but by the journey.

Fear is not bad, but somewhere our society made fear a negative emotion. Fear often keeps us safe, warns us when something is not right and prevents us from making decisions that could destroy us. Yet knowing the difference between fears, the healthy fear and unhealthy fear only comes with experience. Daring to live life, to push the limits, to know you are capable of more, to stare fear in the face and continue to take one step at a time is the tenacity, grit, and fortitude built from the knowledge of who we are and what we are capable of. Yet when we live in fear, live with the expectations others have for us, we are unable to truly develop a clear knowledge of who we are. Not being allowed to make mistakes, to be shamed for failures creates a deep-seated fear that will hold us back at every turn. So often, we forget the five minutes we are living won’t matter in five years. As parents, we expect our children to be perfect, to get everything right the first time, instead of learning to handle failure, to learn from failures, we fear failure.

Failure should not be viewed as a bad thing, rather failure is the first step to success. Lessons cannot be learned; improvements cannot be made without failure. If the question had never been asked how we can do things better, what improvements could be made, progress would not occur. Why as parents do we chastise our children for perceived mistakes and failures when we should instead be asking them what lessons have been learned?

We cannot step out of fear until we first accept failures as a good thing. We should praise those who dare to try, those who were brave enough to step out and take their shot. Yet the current perception, the current belief is to highlight failures, to make people feel bad. And until this changes, we as a whole, cannot step out of fear.

Sincerely-

Sara