Confidently Afraid

Be Afraid 

“ Research consistently shows that tougher individuals are able to perceive stressful situations as challenges instead of threats. A challenge is something that’s difficult, but manageable. On the other hand, a threat is something we’re just trying to survive, to get through. This difference in appraisals isn’t because of an unshakable confidence or because tougher individuals downplay the difficulty. Rather those who can see situations as a challenge developed the ability to quickly and accurately assess the situation and their ability to cope with it.”  - Steve Magness, Do Hard Things.

Many of you, if not most have probably heard or seen the expression “do hard things” in some aspect or another, and some of you may very well live life through that motto, making it look easy or maybe not easy, but impressive to those who don’t. When you see a person going through the rocker because of a decision that they’ve made, whether that decision dealt with career, relationship, family, location, whatever it may have been, when they come out on the other side, when they’ve gotten through it, they are seen as stronger, tougher, almost inspirational. 

Why is this? Because being comfortable is easy and doing hard things is well, hard. And when you see a person do something hard, something that seems scary, something that makes you say “nope that could not be me” it sparks a curiosity in human strength. It makes you wonder deep down “ well if they got through that maybe doing something hard isn’t really all that bad. They came out stronger and seemingly happier, so why can’t that be me?” You don’t have to be a tough or hard person to do tough things. Doing tough things is human, we all have to do it and honestly it is an essential part of life, of growth, if something you’re about to do doesn’t scare the living shit out of you, you don’t want it bad enough and its not a challenge to you which in turn means you’re not growing from it,  you’re becoming complacent and while becoming complacent can be okay it can also be dangerous. You should be happy in life, you should be comfortable as well, but if you want to be a better person, if you want to grow and become the best version of yourself year after year you absolutely have to do hard things. 

Life is about growth, you’re never going to be a perfect version of yourself, but you can try. Be afraid, be afraid to start something new or afraid to finish something. Be afraid but don’t let that fear become an inhibiting factor in your life. If you’re afraid of starting something only because you’re afraid to fail at it, do it anyways, yes you may fail and it may turn out to be the worst time of your life, but in the end, once its all over you’ll either come out of it successful or with knowledge that will overall make your life better. 

The best part about it all, about being afraid, is that no matter what the fear is based around you always have the choice to either step into that fear, accept it, challenge it, or walk away from it. But if you’re going to step into it step into it without expectations. See what happens, do your best in navigating through it but don’t create unrealistic expectations, be confident and let that confidence guide you through it. 

“ Giving yourself a choice sometimes means entertaining the idea of quitting, slowing down, or even giving up. It's not that I want you to do so, but by having a choice, by needing to make a decision, you are developing a sense of control. By considering quitting as an option, you now have influence over the outcome, even if one result is negative.” -Steve Magness 

Im always afraid, I over analyze everything, but if there’s something I really want to do I do it anyways, and I’m by far not the most confident person going into the things that scare me.  anyone who has seen me try, knows very well how much I fuck up. I used to be so afraid of trying things because I was so afraid of making mistakes, being judged by those who were already good at the things I wanted to master, and it used to keep me from doing the things I wanted to do. But over the years Ive learned that its okay to fuck it all up. It’s okay to not be good at all at something. There’s always going to be someone who judges you or thinks you’re a complete idiot, as long as you don’t think of yourself like that, you’re golden. Fuck up and laugh at it and then do it better the next time around, that’s how you grow. That’s how you become better. The things that you fear to do because they seem hard, will suck for a bit, they won’t be fun for a bit, but eventually they will get easier as you learn from them as you grow through them. “ The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterdays red lights lead us to a green light. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life of the next, what goes down will come up” -Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights. 

So, Be afraid. Be confidently afraid, and don’t forget to smile. 

-Dive. Lift. Jiu-Jitsu. Repeat.