I’m revisiting my {un}word again. It’s funny how it keeps popping up in my mind and popping up in my conversations with others. FEAR is real. It invades our life daily, attacking us from the inside out. Being afraid makes us anxious. It also makes us depressed and it keeps us from living our life to the fullest.
About a year ago, I started reading Jon Acuff’s book, Start. I was looking for a way to inventory my talents towards the goal of deciding on a career path. I was immediately hooked by the book’s description as offering a “way to punch fear in the face, escape average, and do work that matters.”
I want to do all three of those things, but mostly I want to punch fear in the face. Because fear is what stands in the way of the latter two. Fear tells me that escaping average is hard. Fear tells me that doing work that matters might not pay the bills. Fear tells me to play it safe.
I started working through the book. As suggested, I got a journal and I started writing down things that I feared or doubted. I read up to page 89 and I stopped. I got sidetracked by life with a toddler and two teenage boys. Summer started.
The opportunity to start an entirely new career as a fitness instructor literally fell into my lap. It’s been a whirlwind ever since. I started teaching in August, became certified by the YMCA in November and I’m taking my certification exam for ACE (American Council on Exercise) this coming Monday. Talk about fear. I’m shaking just think about it.
Becoming a fitness instructor has introduced me to a whole new job market. I have been passionate about healthy eating for quite awhile and about 2 years ago, I started running. With my past experience in teaching, it really has been kind of a natural fit for me. But, it’s also muddied the waters for me as far as trying to choose a specific career. It’s added one more thing to my “jack of all trades, but master of none” list.
Fear tells me I have to choose one specific path in order to be good at it. This notion kept coming up in conversation with a friend of mine and she always responded by saying that I could have multiple jobs. She insisted that I shouldn’t try to push myself into one path or another. This is such a foreign idea to me.
It’s taken me months to digest this notion that I can be a jack of all trades. Right now, I am free of the fear of choosing the wrong path. It’s okay to chase multiple dreams. The idea to start this blog came in the middle of the night. I know it was God’s nudge telling me to, “Get out there.” Put your fears aside and just start something.
I am usually afraid of putting myself on the line, but I am happy in this “fake it, til you make it” phase. I am doing creative things. I am managing my fears, showing them that I am the boss.
Acuff wrote in a recent blog post:
“Fear is a terrible fuel. We all feel it, but we all get the choice to build on something else. Be brave until you actually are. Be courageous until it’s true. Be bold even if boldness feels like a coat that doesn’t fit. And whatever you do, don’t build your dream on a foundation of fear.”
So, here I am in my ill-fitting coat.
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