A four letter word that evokes such strong emotions , it’s funny how that small word can stop us from accomplishing great feats and bringing our dreams into reality. So small but mighty huh ?
So l ask have you ever been afraid? Are you afraid now ? What were you afraid of ?
Now here’s the thing , fear is a VALID emotion and that’s the first step to dealing with fear. You cannot wish fear away because you don’t like how it makes you feel.
Fear can have a strong grip on us and would make you doubt yourself, fear has truncated a lot of dreams because we tend to be overly critical and hard on ourselves.
Now lemme tell you my story and journey with fear ; I generally consider myself to be bold and fearless ( I mean I bungee jumped from a height of 33 storey building so yes I have a badge of honor right there) haha,but recent events got me thinking twice.
As I said in my About , I have always wanted to start a blog or a website and of course with encouragement from my friends I knew it was going to happen sooner than later. I took steps for this website to be built and after a number of back and forth, my website was done ! I wrote a couple of articles, fine tuned it and I was ready to let the world know of this awesomeness then fear reared it ugly head ! I got cold feet and started doubting myself whether everything I had done was good enough.
I doubted whether this was good enough because I had spent time poring over travel and lifestyle bloggers pages on Instagram and their website and admired even envied how sassy and glamorous their pages were , how clean and sharp their pictures and videos were , I mean they were very very intentional about their content and it showed . Me? I was just this Ghanaian girl , yes girl 😄 who loves to travel , takes happy pictures with her phone , has zero editing skills but wanted to write about it , relatable stories , you know the stories you’re reading and it’s like you’re gisting with your friend, and I truly believed I had achieved that objective but I was AFRAID ! I began to look at everything with a critical eye , binned some articles and felt my website wasn’t good enough. I started imagining the decline of the blog even before I let you on it . I mean what’s that ? 🤣. I was letting comparison which is the thief of joy put fear in me thereby robbing me of something I should be proud of ! If for nothing at all , I had accomplished something: starting this blog , I had won over procrastination but here I was thinking about all the things that were wrong.
I was AFRAID! I had let fear get the better part of me . So I asked myself Abena what are you afraid of ? What’s the worst thing that could happen? Just go ahead and announce your website! People would actually be interested in reading your stories,( tell me are you not entertained? Have you not found my blog interesting? Please tell me in the comments section) 😄 and your thoughts, of course you would never know if you let fear get the better part of you.
This YouTube channel wasn’t dishing the aspire to perspire before you expire talks, I just admired how this person was confident in themselves to start a YouTube channel despite not meeting ‘social media standards of a peng YouTuber’ . It took courage and basically giving fear the middle finger.
So I listened to Flora Rheta Schreiber who said “You’re never ready for what you have to do. You just do it! That makes you ready” ! And I realized I would never be ready because I would find every plausible excuse under the sun fueled by fear to postpone launching my website . Thinking and overthinking will not overcome fear but action will.
See fear can be crippling, even debilitating and gradually wear you down so that no matter how skillful or good you’re at something you begin to doubt yourself and imposter syndrome sets in. One trick is to feel the fear and do it anyways ! Acknowledging something is half of the problem solved, the other half is just going ahead to do it.
“My Fear Was Fueled By Rejection ”
Marriane Williamson worded it perfectly when she said : “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be …?”
So here’s the thing tribe, the next time that ugly emotion called fear creeps up on you and threatens to rob you of your joy or prevent you from accomplishing your goal , please feel it and ask yourself who are you not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are powerful beyond measure
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section, have you been afraid? What did it prevent you from accomplishing? Or you felt the fear and went ahead to do it ? Tell me in the comments section please.
Everything sugar , spice and sweet
AB
