it's been a really long time since i last wrote on my blog. here goes my best attempt.
something that's been on my mind lately is understanding why i have such a hard time trying new things. examples: my first time i tried playing golf, i was in tears by the end of the second hole. i kept swinging and missing and was sooooo frustrated. i was scared to even try and then when i wasn't good, i just wanted to give up. i guess i just want to be good at everything i do. another example is my dance class. i am absolutely terrified of the entire scene—it's completely uncomfortable. first of all, you have to ask people to dance and hold sweaty guys' hands, and you have to deal with the people who have been dancing their entire lives and are waaaay better than you and intimidating. these two examples are things that i have actually tried to do after much self-convincing, but it makes me REALLY uncomfortable.
so here's the catch. i've realized that if i could boil it all down to one thing it would be fear. i'm flat-out scared to try new things. i'm scared i will look dumb, not be able to do it, or just fail altogether. this realization was a surprising one for me because i don't see myself as really being scared of stuff like that. but i think that there's definitely an element of fear related to the things i never actually try.
i'm going to fix this. i'm telling myself that i am going to try new things and recognize that i might be scared but i'm going to do it anyway. i heard this great quote once: "if you want things to happen that have never happened before you have to do things you've never done before." i'm going to do things i've never done before and i'm not going to let fear get in my way. and i'm going to be awesome. done and done.
and it's okay to define "awesome" as not giving in to fear and just having fun with whatever new something you're doing (which totally IS awesome!), as opposed to defining it as being unnaturally great at that something... basically, you're awesome regardless Paige!
ReplyDeleteIt's been my observation that people who excel at many things (as you do) can begin to feel the pressure of expectation from themselves or others to sort of keep up their perfect record...even when trying new things. Fear is a pretty natural result of unrealistic expectation.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the cure is to just allow yourself to be human.
AND exceptional.
(You can hardly avoid the latter!)
=)
kin, kind words both of you! thanks for the encouragement, love you both.
ReplyDelete