This evening while I was out to dinner with three very good friends, I mentioned my new found recognition of fear. I’ve been working for the same company since I first graduated from college and I’ve become quite comfortable with where I work and what I do. Picking up two new jobs has forced me to venture into new subject matters outside of my comfort zone. In both jobs I noticed a certain fear that seemed to swell within me. Not an anxiety inducing fear, just a general feeling of uneasiness. Do I know how to do things I’m attempting? Will I be good at what I do? What if I’m not good at what I do?
I took a few minutes to recognize the uneasy feeling as fear, more specifically a fear of failure and a fear of the unknown. The more I focused on the fear the more it seemed to dissipate, but it didn’t entirely dissolve. I’m not sure why I brought it up at dinner tonight, but when I came home this evening the very first post in my RSS Feed was Five Great Ways to Conquer Your Fears. In the post, Doug Heacock a guest writer over at Zen Habits notes that Failure isn’t necessarily the end of the world. In essence, he points out that we all learn from our failures and that perhaps the real failure is in never trying at all.
I think the universe is telling me to explore my new opportunities… to face my fears rather than being afraid.
I read a pretty useful book once by Dale Carnegie, “How to stop worrying and live life.” Which basically says that when you start to worry, ask yourself what is the worst thing that could happen. Then figure out what you’d do if that came about. Usually it’s not nearly as bad as you think, and once you’ve considered the effects, you can get on with your life.