Doing something that scares you is often your ticket to success.
I am not talking about the spooky haunted house scary stuff or the Stephen King horror movie, IT. I am talking about scaring yourself—taking the big risk and pushing yourself into an arena, experience or venture that you were not sure you were quite ready for.
“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” – Marissa Mayer former CEO of Yahoo, a woman that pushed lots of envelopes
Well, for the last couple years I have been on a quest to push myself (check out The 50 in 50 challenge) all with the objective of exploring my “next big thing” in life. I have been an actress, mother, entrepreneur, producer, coach and now I want to mush all of my life skills together and make something even more beautiful (or at least this is what I keep telling myself as I explore the crazy chaos of change and growth).
Last week, after three years in the ‘parking lot,’ I relaunched Pink Chandelier with the new name, the [chandelier] project to provide women with a place to engage, learn, and grow. Each event features a local female entrepreneur who joins me in a conversation about her story, business and passions. I then share some tips and tricks to help make our lives a little better.
The perfect entrepreneur and creative woman for our re-launch was Veronique Hammons, nationally recognized art curator and owner of Gallery Veronique in Montgomery, Ohio. She shared her passion and expertise, empowering each of us to better understand and experience visual art in our lives.
Then I shared what I believe is our obligation to be creative. Yet often we are fighting an incredible and sometimes intense resistance to that which yearns to be born from within us.
I talked about what I have learned and experienced along my own path as an artist.
- FEAR is a part of risk, change and growth. Accept it rather than fight it. It is one of life’s non-negotiables if you want to expand your repertoire.
- FEAR GETS BIGGER if you turn from it and deny yourself the opportunity to adventure into new territory.
- FEAR GETS SMALLER as you advance toward your big challenge or possibility.
Ok so how do you advance toward it without allowing it to cripple you?
Play out the worst-case scenario. Often fear is present because we worry about the future, the unknown. What is the worst thing that could happen? You might make a fool of yourself, maybe you fail completely, perhaps you lose some money…. Can you survive that? I believe you can. 80% of what we worry about never comes to fruition anyway.
Envision the perfect outcome. I am a believer in the law of attraction and that which I think, I become. So once I have decided that I can survive the worst case scenario, I visualize my victory.
Take Action. I start doing and move in the direction of fear. Sometimes I have to do this with my nose to the grindstone, focusing only on the simplicity of the next thing to do. What can I do today? Each little step is manageable and once I raise my head up, my progress is that much closer and fear is that much smaller.
Learn as you go and adjust. Don’t wait for perfect timing, perfect circumstances, perfect anything. The [chandelier] project relaunch event stirred a huge fear in me and as I look back I learned a ton from our first event; things that went well, things I know I screwed up, things that pleasantly surprised me, and things that I will do differently next time. But ultimately, I did it!
There is so much more ahead for the [chandelier] project and I hope you will join me at one of the next events.
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