Welcome back, my friends! I’m proud of you for being here. Today, we begin the hard, heart work of identifying our fears. Are you cringing yet? I’m not a huge fan of this part ready to dig in! Get that pen and paper ready, set that timer and write.
What are the hurts that you are holding on to so tightly? What “failures” have you experienced in your life? What did you try that just plain did not work out? Who are you afraid of letting down? What should you let go of? What are you too afraid to try? Here are a few of my answers to these questions…
- I’m afraid to launch my online shop because I might not sell anything or help anyone better their business.
- I’m afraid that if I increase my prices and shoot only film, no one will book me.
- I’m afraid that if I let other women in, I won’t be a good friend to them, and vise versa.
- I’m afraid that I will never let Jesus be enough to satisfy my need to buy. all. the. things.
- I’m afraid that I’ll never be the worship leader I want to be, so I don’t put my whole heart into it, and I also don’t accept other peoples’ word of affirmation very well.
Friends, that was real, and it was really hard for me to put those fears out there for all to see. There are SO many more, too. You know what, though? I think you need to see that. I think you need to see that I’m not a perfect person, that I have real fears and things that I struggle with every single day. It wouldn’t be fair for me to sit behind the safety of my computer screen and not go through the same process that I’m asking you to go through.
Solidarity.
So tell me, friend. What are your fears? What’s holding you back?
I’m afraid to be unafraid.
I’m afraid of not improving my situation
I’m afraid to begin
I too am afraid of letting people in.
Thank you for this blog! It’s wonderful!
Thank you so much for your brave comment! I do hope you’ll be back for part 3 of this series…it’s the fun part! We will set our goals and define our action steps in spite of our fears. Stay tuned!
O my goodness!! I think this is so helpful!! And also, so brave! Thank you for posting! I’m actually trying to do a research project about fear and art and creativity. I find that I’m happy to research all the philosophers and artists, but I’m AFRAID to actually write it. The whole reason I wanted to write about fear was tao address it, and now I feel like it’s got the better of me.
1) I’m afraid of failing publicly, so I keep my projects a secret.
2) I’m afraid that I won’t address 100% of any given topic (which is impossible) therefore I shouldn’t bother addressing any of it – urgh!!
3) I’m afraid to launch my website – it too feels like a “public” failure, so I make excuses for it to seem unfinished.
4) As an entrepreneur, I’m afraid to get past the planning phase, and actually take action or move toward opening/running my own art space. So I settle to work for other people, even abusive bosses who are not as good at their job as I am. But fear…
As your clients, if you had told Amitabh and I that you could shoot on film, we would have loved it, and requested it! (But we are sort of geeks – I’ not sure how many people would love that?) And as for your pricing – we found you to be about $1,000 less than your competition – so you could charge more and people would still book you.
MEG! I appreciate your thoughtful comment a TON. It seems as if you and I struggle in VERY similar ways. Yes, we’ve been dabbling in film but plan to shoot it more intentionally this year, in hopes to transition to all film by the end of the year. We will finally make a price jump at that point. Thank you for the support and you should get that website up! I can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on!