Fear.
I don’t care who you are or where you come from, we all struggle with various fears on a daily basis. It’s one thing that unites us all, but it’s also something we don’t talk about very often. Instead, we often hear much more about hate, anger, jealousy, and criticism which only further leads to more fear. What if we just started talking more about what scares us?
Fear can be crippling. As someone who has suffered from chronic anxiety my entire life, I know that all too well. If left unchallenged, our fears can multiply. I personally fear failure, mistakes, judgment, health of myself and loved ones, not being worthy or deserving, disappointing myself and others. I even fear that I won’t be able to overcome my fears. Sometimes fears are on a smaller scale, but they seem difficult nonetheless – going out to see friends, making a difficult phone call, or getting back into an old sport. Fear can be motivating, “Oh I don’t want to mess up my speech, so I’m going to practice every day this week.” or demotivating, “I messed up and feel like an idiot, so I won’t make myself vulnerable again.”
Because of our fears and in spite of our fears, I’m making a special challenge for the month of August. This month I’m personally challenging myself and any of you who are interested to take control of our fears, whatever they may be!
From the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt, my challenge for August is to do one thing a day that scares you.
The beauty of this challenge is that YOU define it. You make the rules and decide what is challenging for you. We all know ourselves better than anyone and it’s up to us to define this challenge in a way that meets our own needs.
I currently have some things in my life that are holding me back and I’ll be working daily this month to challenge fears and negativity and make room for personal growth.
To keep myself accountable, I’m logging my daily feats on a calendar each day. By the end of the month, I’ll hopefully have a log of large and small fears that I overcame. The end result is intended to build confidence, inspire new personal challenges, and remind ourselves that we are more powerful than we know.
How to participate
As always, let me know in the comments if you’d like to join in! I’d love to hear about what fears you’ve overcome all month long, so feel free to leave a note on my blog or Facebook page and tell me about it. If you write a recap at the end of the month on your blog and send it to me, I will try to compile all of the links in a post so others can read about your journey too. I’d love to hear about your experiences!
Last but not least, here are some quotes on fear to get us inspired: (source)
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
― Jim Morrison“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
― Marie Curie“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.”
― C. JoyBell C.
For more inspiring quotes, see my quote page.
If you are looking for more personal work, my Gratitude Challenge, could work hand in hand with this month’s challenge.
Here’s to August!
We all have fears – fears of being inadequate, not doing enough as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, sister – are we ever enough to all the people who count on us? Well, I worry about that. Not a fear per se, but a worry. I think your challenge is awesome.
Oh I just love this!! I am up for it – have a lot of big scary things coming up this month!! Just conquered a huge one yesterday and released my blog and site that I’ve been working on! I struggled with disordered eating patterns for a while and I talk about it there in hopes of inspiring other women and redefining what it means to be fit and healthy. There are so many things I want to do with it and my business and they all include stepping out of my comfort zone so this is perfect! Thanks for the inspiration!!! Good luck on your journey this month!
I love this challenge!! I let my fears affect me WAY too much and I spend way too much time worrying. Everytime I do something that scares me, I feel so amazing. A great challenge and I’m excited to take part.
Love this idea! And I love the new blog design!
On a side note- this morning I have been trying to visit your “popular recipes” page via the link in the top right welcome box, but unfortunately my computer won’t load the page and brings me to the error message “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.” I’ll click through and find the page on my own, but just thought I’d give you a heads up in case others were experiencing the same issue.
Hey Brie, Thank you so much!
Sorry about the link not working!I’m sure that was my doing, hah. It will be fixed shortly. :)
Gosh, what a great post! Fear is a common trait in my life. With that said, I seem to continuously invite it to stay as every time a new opportunity that crosses my path scares me, I know I need to try my best to tackle it. Based on my previous experiences, it is these that are the most rewarding. And yet, fear still keeps me up at night sometimes… that I have to work on :).
Hi Angela,
I stumbled upon your post in what seems to be an act of fate, since I literally just took the first half of my graduate comprehensive exams about an hour ago. I too have struggled with chronic anxiety my whole life, and my biggest fear is a fear of failure. In fact, before I read this, I was obsessing over my exam questions, wondering in fear if my answers were “good” enough and the prospect of them not being “good” enough and failing. I worried how I would feel when that time came. What my friends and family would think. How I would have to start over. Then I read your blog, and realized this was something I needed to get over this month. There are things much worse than failing an exam.
I also struggle with a fear of air travel, and I am going to visit my parents far away in California next week. Getting on a plane is a huge fear of mine, so I will certainly be put to the test this month.
I love reading your posts every week. They are inspiring to me, and sometime always seem to relate to something I am experiencing myself. So thank you for making your voice heard :)
-Rebecca
Great idea for a challenge! I will gladly participate. :)
Angela,
I’m in! I love your blog not only for the recipes but for things like this, the motivational stories, words of wisdom, and posts that make me challenge myself. Recently I’ve been making a lot of life changes and this is the perfect encouragement to make sure I keep pushing forward despite my fears. Thank you so much for what you do, you make a difference in many lives, mine included.
I’m in! Like so many others, I suffer from anxiety and although I’ve come a long way recently, I still need to push through some stubborn fears that are holding me back.
I love this idea and I think a lot of us are going to benefit from this challenge.
I have this strange fear of swimming at the pool in my gym. No clue why but it terrifies the crap out of me! I can’t even make my self walk into the pool area!
This is so great! I’m in the same boat as a lot of other girls on here, about to start my final year of undergrad work. I’m excited to go into this challenge and bring it with me on my family vacation (to Canada, actually!) and even with me to school at the end of the month.
Hopefully after challenging myself every day for 31 days straight it’ll be like second nature!
LOVE THIS…just what i needed.. will definitely be joining you in this challenge as i challenge my eating disorder thoughts and shutdown ed responses to these thoughts :) thankyou!!!
I’m so apart of this! I can’t believe myself sometimes, for this past I have. I am a risk taker and sometimes I had held back from doing what I know I’m capable of, which is jumping into the unknown. I changed my whole life this year, well last month to be honest. I worked at a job I originally loved, and have been there for 3 years. It started about a year ago to take a turn for the worst unfortunately. I had to switch positions, and felt stuck there, and was so ridiculously unhappy. My career goals basically had to be put on stop. Because this job blocked me from being able to do any of that. So I was making sandwiches and pizzas, with all this meat on it daily, talking to rude people and very sad. Especially with myself, knowing I was keeping myself in this place. I was afraid though, of course to leave, because I had such great benefits. I had insurance a huge discount, and other things…. that I didnt want to let go of. But sometimes, happiness is way more important than those other things. I decided one day after coming back from vacation, and really getting a chance to see the beauty in life again, I came back to work the next day. and I put my 2 weeks in. I could not be in this place anymore that was making me so unhappy.
I am so thankful I had an opportunity to see what I was doing when I was on vacation, I got to clear my mind and think, and finally realize when I got back, that this was not for me, and I will find a way, somewhere else. And surely enough, I have. I work at a raw vegan restaurant now that is alllllll about Gratitude :) and has changed me for the best! I get to be in a place that is so healthy for my mind and mood and body. This place is so amazing. But I would’ve never had the opportunity to work there, if I wouldn’t have taken a risk to let go of this other terrible job. Yes it was scary, because it was change. but since then, everything and I mean soooooo many things have been happening for me, in this perfect alignment, clarifying that I am indefinitely in the right place. All because I made a change. took a risk and jumped. : )
What a great post, Angela! I am so in on this… my #1 fear, and I hate to admit it, is judgment, ie, the judgment of others. I fake it a lot, but I tend to care way too much about what others think. I obviously have my own blog now, but struggled a long time before starting it because I didn’t think mine would be good enough, and that I’d be judged negatively. This is something I really want to work on, so what better time than now. Yeah August!
Okay, so I’ve been an avid reader of your blog for almost a year now and you were actually one of my biggest inspirations in starting my own. This is my first time commenting though (finally!)
I LOVE this challenge. It’s actually something I’ve been working on a lot recently and this will definitely give me the extra push to keep going. I’m in! <3
Thank you Emily, I appreciate your comment! Going to check out your blog :)
Really perfect timing. I was checking your blog to distract myself from my biggest source of fear – not hearing from my daughter when she’s with her dad – and I know it’s gone from being normal mom-worry to representing something much bigger. Maybe a month of facing smaller fears will help me deal with this.
I’m so glad you are doing this challenge! getting out of my comfort zone is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
I want to challenge myself to do the things I love without stopping to think if I can, “really do it” or if I “deserve” to be successful and happy.
For me this week it meant signing up at my local yoga studio as a volunteer. Yoga is becoming more and more a part of my life. I love the way it has helped me handle anxiety and chronic pain and repair my body image and my broken relationship with my body. I’d like to eventually become a yoga teacher and help other people find peace within their bodies and minds. But I keep thinking that I’m not fit or grounded or zen enough to be a yoga teacher, that I won’t be able to teach other people anything. Volunteering at the studio is my first step in saying yes to this passion of mine. I was afraid I wouldn’t belong there but everyone has been so kind and welcoming! My thing that scares me will be allowing myself to explore and become immersed in this world without worrying about failure.
The timing of this challenge could not be more perfect. I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks about this very subject, specifically about my fear of failure when it comes to attempting new creative endeavors (right now that would be songwriting and photography). It’s the worst and definitely getting in the way of achieving what I want to. Will try your suggestion of logging daily feats on a calendar – I hope I can keep it up all month!
This is a great idea for a challenge. I have some work to do on my fears, so this challenge comes at the perfect time.
Also, I haven’t commented yet, but I wanted to say how much I like all the changes to the blog.
Just needed this post this morning as I have a 6mth job review and I have a bit of negotiation to go through and I am SO NERVOUS! I am also in the middle of getting some professional help with my chronic anxiety and it is a slow process. You’re right though, nobody talks about this stuff. Wishing everyone bravery this morning to confront our fears!