Overcoming Fear Bit by Bit

one goal down

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

I love goals. Long before I even knew what coaching was, long before I took my first training, I was into goals. It was the way I could motivate myself and keep focused. I somehow intuited the idea of small successes leading to bigger ones and was able to accomplish some big aims when I was young. Not all of them worked out, of course, but enough that it reinforced the idea of incremental steps.

I’ve been coaching for over a decade and there have been plenty of times where I felt like an imposter, a fake. I could give myself a good pep talk and move past it most days, but sometimes the negative self-talk was louder and I felt totally defeated.

I was recently encouraged to submit a proposal to present at a conference. It’s a conference that’s in the divorce arena, but more aligned to the legal aspects than the coaching. I’m fully in my “why not?” age and felt excited by the challenge of it. A colleague suggested I present on fear in divorce and I knew that was definitely in my wheelhouse.

I had very little time before the deadline and after a few false starts, began to feel like it was out of my depth.

What am I thinking? I can’t present in front of a bunch of attorneys!

No way am I qualified to speak about fear! What do I know?

It’s ridiculous! I can’t write this under this kind of time crunch - just forget it!

Over and over I felt the doubt trying to derail me. I’d take a walk, spend time away from my outline. Talk to friends. Bounce ideas. And then it started to take shape. And I reminded myself that I have a wealth of lived experience from which to draw, I have unique insights, years of training, a singular voice…

Of course I can do this!

And I rebounded back to one of my mantras, the one I use when I want to encourage myself to take a risk, to move past the fear and just go for it:

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

The world will keep spinning, the sun will rise and set, it will be okay no matter what.

Yes! If my proposal doesn’t get selected it just means I’m not a good fit for this event, not that I’m a shitty person. It could mean that next time I give myself more than ten days to to try and bring something to life. Or that I can find a different audience, or hone the outline to make it better.

So I made the goal to submit it by 5pm Friday. And I worked and reworked and edited and uploaded, and then at 4:39pm I pressed submit.

I don’t know when they let people know if they’re accepted, but I’m not anxiously waiting. No, I feel proud that I made my goal, happy that I took a shot regardless of outcome, and relieved that I got it done.

Now, what’s next?