You will never be fearless. You will often have to fake confidence, at least at first. Without failure – there is no success.
My fears have been what’s compelled me to take risks. The more risks I took, the more confident I became.
At 17, I graduated high school and immediately left the home I grew up in. I got a good job with my fancy computer skills and ability to write a decent memo. I feared being out in the world with no experience, but the world welcomed me.
At 19, I was afraid of working in an office forever. I feared becoming bitter and slovenly, putting forth only the effort necessary to pull in a paycheck. So I quit my job with the university to live in a VW bus, traveling the West Coast.
I didn’t know what to expect. I learned life was more amazing when I stopped expecting things.
Love came and went. Each time felt like a failure, but I learned to let go, to hold on loosely, to never settle. Never letting love lost become regret, I finally found someone whole – someone to appreciate who appreciates me.
I feared never being understood. It wasn’t until I stopped needing other’s approval that I found the value in listening deeply.
People always tell me they wish they had my confidence. I actually have extreme social anxiety, but I know that people mostly base their opinions on appearances. I appear confident, so I am confident. Which came first? The chicken, or the egg?
If you are afraid, you’re not alone. If you don’t feel good enough – everyone goes through that, sometimes often.
The biggest risk you need to take to be successful is trusting yourself. When you put yourself out there, you may fail. The point is not to succeed all the time. The point is to live.
Confidence comes when you fail enough times, you feel confident that you can handle failure. You feel confident that your failures do not define you. You know that fear will always be there, but it feels like a tickle instead of a stab.
I can tell you with total confidence – if you’ve been through anything devastating in your life and made it through to the other side, you can do it again. Good thing most situations in life aren’t so drastic.
Make friends with fear, allow confidence to be your blanket and let failure be your guide.