006: FEAR KEEPS HOLDING ME BACK.
SO I'M JUMPING IN WHILE I CAN.
I think fear comes pretty naturally to most people as an adult. I know it certainly comes to me pretty easily these days. Especially in this day and age of constant exposure, responsibilities and screen times. Our social awareness as adults makes the world a lot more scarier than when we were children and therefore, naturally and a lot of times without real cause, our fears grow alongside our ages. And that has happened for me, many times. I do think sometimes it has happened simply because I have outgrown certain stages of my life, and that is completely okay. That happens. But overall, sometimes I have left things unfinished because I was scared. And hey, sometimes I've not even started because I felt fear.
But... you never know until you try, right? And one of my favourite sayings I have always tried to live by is that 'you haven't failed until you quit trying'... Now I wouldn't necessarily say that I fear failure, because I don't. I am very big on acknowledging the fact that, even if something didn't work out, I gave it a go anyway. So what is my fear actually based on? Well, I think it comes from the unknown and the idea that actually I am unsure of what I am doing in certain situations and therefore it feels daunting to me because, whilst I am not scared of failing, I am scared of doing something wrong. There is an entire deeper psychological based conversation to be had there but that's not what this post is. Instead I am talking about this topic today at the very surface level.
When I was younger (around 3 years old) my nannan wanted me and my older brother to learn to swim. My extended family had had an unfortunate experience with a relative of mine, and my nannan herself couldn't swim, so she was very certain that for us it was going to be something we would learn to do. And the short version of this story is that, we did learn to swim and all is well. But the reason I am bringing up learning to swim is because my experience of learning to swim gives (in my opinion) a perfect analogy of what I am trying to describe with not having fear of the unknown as a child, but it being one of my biggest as an adult.
When my nannan took me and my brother to the local swimming baths to sign up to learn how to swim, the lady said the swimming baths only accepted children over the age of 5 as they liked them to be more established with water before coming to group sessions. I was three, my brother was eight. I was devastated. And the lady could see that. So she told my nannan to bring me back the following week and she would see how I got on in the water and go from there. My nannan took me home, gave me a pep talk about how if the lifeguard thought I was scared she wouldn't let me start swimming lessons and I just had to be brave. I returned the following week to see if I was eligible to start learning to swim.
At the local swimming baths there were two pools: the big pool and the little pool. Even though my local swimming baths closed many many years ago and I also hadn't been for a long time, I can still picture that pool so well. I can see it very vividly. I can see the steps down from the big pool area to the little pool area, I can see the plastic chairs for parents around the edge of the room and I can see the metal steps down into the pool too. Which is funny because 3 year old me didn't see them at all. Instead when the lady asked me to get into the pool I just threw myself off the side with no prior experience or anything. And no fear. I was literally jumping into the unknown with nothing stopping me and yet I wasn't scared. And look what happened. I learnt to swim. I was accepted into swimming lessons two years earlier than everyone else and was the youngest in my swimming group by two whole years. But I achieved the main goal. They let me sign up early.
My swimming journey does have a few more elements to it including heartbreak and regret but those might be stories for some other time.
Now when I am thinking about trying something new and I feel fear because it's all very new and unknown I remind myself of little me. The girl who probably was scared deep down, but never showed it. And the girl who learnt. And that's the key here. Jumping into the pool didn't come with instant knowledge of being able to swim. I still had to learn and be taught. But what it did do is give me the building blocks to start that journey. And that's how I try to look at things in life now. You won't necessarily know everything to begin with, but you have to try and you have to get it started before you will even know. And trying is much more courageous and impressive than just straight up saying you couldn't do it.
And I guess what is funny is looking at the situations I am in right now that are bringing me fear, and the ones I want to hurdle over the feeling to get to the goal of is that, that little three year old would be smiling. Smiling because I have taken the steps to trying, rather than letting fear stop me before I've even started. She would love to be doing the things I want to do now. And she would think me now was really cool. I know she'd like to be me when she grows up. And from this moment on at least I can say I tried.