courage Archives - Megan Hallier

How to start now even if you don’t feel ready yet

Ready, set, GO!

That was how we always started races when I was a kid. There was always a pause, a time to gather ourselves, a clearly defined moment for us to get prepared before we took off down the track.

We always had that luxury of time to get ready. Nobody expected us to bolt right away or to make the decision as to how ready we were. We were just given the time and then asked to GO.

It was a lot easier like that. Before our minds got muddled and we got in our own way.

Before we started questioning if we really are ready, if we really can do it at all.

Before we let fear get the better of us.

Now I often find myself questioning whether I am ready, whether the timing is right, whether I need more training before I start.

There isn’t anyone there to shout ready, set, GO for me. The boundaries aren’t so clear cut anymore.

At the moment, I am looking for a new job and I find myself getting smaller and smaller in the process. With each rejection, my confidence shrinks a tiny bit and I start to tell myself that maybe I’m really just not ready yet.

I keep waiting for a job to pop up that I know I can do because I’m so afraid of flinging myself into the deep end where I’ll feel incompetent and a total failure.

I don’t feel ready, I feel paralyzed.

I am frozen to the spot, completely incapable of making such a big life decision.

Should I take a regular 9-5 job or work on my creative pursuits? Should I take a punt on a business idea or go for a stable income? Should I study more or start making some savings?

And I bet a lot of you are in the same boat. Maybe you aren’t looking for a job right now but I’m sure there is something else you’ve been longing to try but you just aren’t sure if you are ready yet.

Perhaps it’s a business idea, a new hobby or something you want to learn. Maybe there is someone you’d love to be friends with or wish could be your mentor. Or it might be a place you’d love to travel to or a new town you’d like to call home.

Whatever it is you’ve always wanted to start, the time to start is right now.

So why do we wait until we feel ready?

Why do we put so much weight on this feeling? Why do we put off doing the things that we know will make us happy?

Because the thing is, if we wait until we feel ready, we might never take the leap. We might never pluck up the courage to move forwards. We might never even try.

And the terrible truth is, if we don’t take the leap, we miss out on life.

Every exciting, incredible, soul-satisfying possibility is on the other side of fear.

Fear, that diving board we are teetering on. Fear, the jolting feeling of missing the last step. Fear, that nagging sensation we’ve forgotten something at home.

Fear will always be there. Telling us the timing isn’t right. Making us believe we aren’t good enough. Keeping us stagnant.

But life is too short to miss out on opportunities because we feel afraid. We don’t have the luxury of time to wait until we feel ready, we have to just start now.

How to start now even if you don’t feel ready

Push past your fear

Figure out what the fears are that are preventing you from taking action and address them.

My biggest fears are that I’ll fail or I’ll embarrass myself.

So I am learning to work through these fears by being gentle with myself when I fail. Thereby, creating a positive environment where failure is okay, as long as I learn from it.

I also choose to surround myself with people who will support me regardless of the outcome of my attempts. This means that I can trust them to encourage and stand by me in both my successes and disappointments.

Remove any self-limiting beliefs

What I know from the past is that with most jobs, you learn as you go. You gain the skills you need to perform the job, by doing the job. You figure out if this kind of work is right for you by giving it a go.

And the same goes for almost anything. You simply learn as you go.

Most of the time, you don’t know if you can do something until you give it a try.

So don’t allow yourself to believe you aren’t good enough or you don’t have the skills to do something. You can learn!

Instead, speak words of kindness over yourself. Be your own biggest cheerleader. Build yourself up so that you have the confidence to try. Give some of these self love affirmations a go.

Fake it till you make it

This is the constant piece of advice I get from my older friends, the ones who have lived longer and tried to make things happen for themselves more times than I have.

These words have always bugged me before because they are one of those phrases people like to throw around without actually giving you any advice.

But the deal is, if you don’t feel ready yet, then you should act as though you do. Act like you aren’t afraid. Talk with confidence instead of cushioning your words with I thinks, buts and maybes.

Make people believe you are the real deal and keep going until you start to believe you are the real deal too.

If you carry yourself with confidence nobody will question whether you belong or whether you are right. Learning how to be confident is key.

Take small steps forward

It feels terribly overwhelming if you try to face all of your fears and jump head first into your project right away.

So just take it in small steps. It’s okay if all you did today was begin your research or watch a Youtube video or say out loud for the first time that you want to write book.

Small steps are still movement and they provide the initial work required to gain momentum.

Whatever it is that you are dreaming of starting, you absolutely can.

Even now, when you don’t feel ready yet.

You just need to believe in yourself. Invest in yourself. Give yourself the tools, time and space to achieve your goals. And remember, nothing ever happens overnight. Success takes hard work, patience and persistence.

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In Building relationships

The power of vulnerability: having the courage to say how we really feel

I never really grasped the power of vulnerability until I started dating.

The effort required to put yourself out there and meet someone in the first place is immense. And this only compounds once you are actually in a relationship and forced to share so much of yourself with another person.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to articulate my frustration or the depth of my affection. But both things are equally challenging.

Both require a level of vulnerability I was completely unprepared for.

Even for someone who loves words as much as me, finding the right ones to say can be nearly impossible. It’s like my mouth dries up and the ability to formulate a sentence disappears.

One of the biggest lessons I am learning is that withdrawing from vulnerability and bottling up emotions is a surefire way to cause trouble in a relationship. And when broken people try to build relationships, trouble is already present in spades.

When I was doing a spot of gardening this week I found a perfect metaphor for this phenomenon.

I’ve recently come to learn that walnut trees are prolific and tenacious in their pursuit of complete, garden domination.

They grow up into these ginormous, towering trees which look absolutely magnificent but are really just huge, leafy pests. Every autumn they drop hundreds of walnuts beneath their canopy and an army of shoots sprout before your very eyes.

I was given the critical task of removing the excess shoots from beneath one of the trees before they got out of control and created a backyard platoon.

Due to my lack of gardening experience, I foolishly predicted the work would be easy.

At first, I found that the small, immature plants were easy to pull out. They only required a gentle tug and the entire shoot and roots would be in my hands.

The larger plants were a different story however. Their roots were well established, their stems were thicker and so they were tougher to remove from the ground.

And as I huffed and puffed under the shade of that grand old, walnut tree I thought about how similar these shoots are to our bottled up emotions.

We start out with a little niggling frustration, a slight undiagnosed sadness, there will be something that upsets us and we will refuse to figure out why.

Then little by little, the frustrations mount, the anger seethes, the sadness deepens.

What once was a small shoot becomes a fully developed plant. With roots spanning deep and wide. We find it is impossible to remove with a simple, gentle tug, instead we must cut off the stem and dig out the roots.

The problem with avoiding vulnerability is that our issues never get resolved.

That’s what we are doing every time we fear vulnerability and say “I’m fine” even though we are not.

This is what happens when someone upsets us but we choose to not make waves or confront the problem.

And this is what we allow to fester when we refrain from doing the difficult work of dealing with our emotions through self-reflection.

I’m guilty of this as much as anyone.

I have a terrible propensity for believing people can and should read my mind. That they should be aware when I am upset and they should know exactly what I need them to do to make things right.

This doesn’t bode well in relationships. People can hardly ever read my mind. Most of the time I just go quiet and no one will be any the wiser that what they did upset me.

Sometimes I get lazy and prefer to avoid dwelling on my negative emotions. Instead of asking myself why I am feeling upset and working out what I can do about it, I numb myself. I run in the other direction. I shut out those feelings.

But staying silent doesn’t make the problem go away. Numbing ourselves or pushing the negative emotion down deep doesn’t allow us to heal.

The problem just simmers away in the background, waiting dormant, ready to pop back up at any moment.

What we need is to understand the power of vulnerability.

Choosing to say how we really feel. Laying our cards on the table. Opening up and allowing ourselves to heal.

Daring to be vulnerable is a terrifying feeling. Like losing control of the car you are driving. Like being a bug under a microscope. Like leaning dangerously over the edge of a cliff.

There is no easy way to wander into vulnerability. It takes a great deal of work.

But the rewards of vulnerability are countless. The power of vulnerability is incredible.

When we find the courage to say how we really feel, we create an opportunity for real connection with others.

When we allow people to see our weaknesses, our fears and our biggest needs, we allow them to step into those places and help us mend ourselves.

If we learn to process our emotions, to express our feelings, to release instead of bottling them up, we can find a deeper sense of belonging.

We have to be braver about this.

We need to start tackling those shoots when they are still small. Instead of just brushing things off, we need to start dealing with our emotions.

We need to become more self aware so that we know our strengths and weaknesses. So we know what makes us so very frustrated or absolutely delighted. We have to take the time to get to know ourselves first.

And we need to ask for help when we feel sad or confused or lonely. It isn’t fair to expect people to read our minds and determine our needs.

I think now I realise the power of vulnerability. To be vulnerable is not to show weakness but to recognise our strength. To understand that saying how we really feel is one of the bravest and best things we can do.

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In Seeking encouragement

Doing something brave even when it scares you

I’ve been feeling this pressure welling up inside of me for months. Like the gentle expansion of a balloon as air is forced into it, stretching and stretching until eventually, it bursts.

The stress has been pressing in on me from all sides.

I have felt trapped. Unable to move because every option seems too heavy, too messy or too complicated to pursue.

In all honesty, my job has been making me miserable and all this time I’ve been wrestling with this constant dissatisfaction.

Because serving people all day long is exhausting. Because waking up at 5am every day is grueling. Because getting told off and feeling on edge all the time is demeaning.

And truthfully, I believe I deserve better.

But I’ve been too scared to walk away. Because quitting means stepping into the unknown, a future without the security of a job, without a clear plan, without a clue what to do next.

Leaving means giving up a regular paycheck and my independence.

So I have stayed.

I’ve pushed through the negative thoughts and tried to focus on the positive. I’ve thought of tiny, little ways to make each day better. I’ve started going to bed early so the mornings aren’t quite as painful.

And yet, I still feel the pressure. I still feel the dissatisfaction. I still feel myself yearning for something more.

Happiness, excitement and creativity are calling out me. Begging me to do the brave thing. Quickening my heart and filling my head with dreams that I long to make come true.

Finally, after months of this internal battle, I decided to quit my job.

Now I feel sick. Now I feel free. Now I feel I am finally being true to myself.

There have been so many moments this year where I have felt that queasy, is-this-the-right-thing-or-a-terrible-mistake feeling.

So many times I’ve doubted myself, grappled with the uncertainty and clung to the familiar instead of choosing the brave thing.

I don’t blame myself.

Doing the brave thing is hard. Going out on a limb is terrifying. Stepping into the unknown takes so much courage.

We get these rare moments every now and then where we can choose to take the easy route or do the brave thing.

Should we date that guy? Should we take that job? Should we move to a new city? Should we go back and study?

To me it feels a lot like rock climbing. You don’t really know which of the oddly-shaped hand holds to grab until you let go of the last one and stretch your arm up to grab the next one.

For a split second you are dangling in mid-air, gripping nothing, with only your sheer focus and determination driving you forwards.

Sometimes you grab the wrong handhold. One of those small, knobbly ones that makes your sweaty hands slip right off.

But other times you are lucky enough to reach for one with a proper indentation, one that makes pulling yourself up easy.

Sometimes being brave is just about doing the next right thing. Sitting still long enough to recognize your wants and needs.

The brave thing might be the opposite of what everyone else says you should do. It might make you unpopular. It might take everything you’ve got.

But the brave thing is worth it.

A little over five months ago I said another scary yes and started dating a guy who’s ended up becoming my best friend.

Every part of me wanted to keep my tattered little heart locked up safe where no guy could ever trample on it again but instead I chose to share it with him. I chose to open up and give love another chance.

It turns out this was the best yes I’ve said in a long time.

So here I am again doing the brave thing even though it scares me.

Reaching out for the next handhold, unsure whether it will be able to support me. Going out on a limb because I know life is full of surprises if we are willing to take a chance.

We can fool ourselves into believing that it is only special people who do incredible things. That only very few, lucky people are truly happy. But I think that’s wrong.

The truly happy people, the ones who have done and are doing amazing things are the ones who are willing to do the brave things.

They aren’t any different to you and me. They just pushed past the fear and said yes anyway. They just bottled away enough courage to leap forwards.

They just believed in themselves enough to think it might just be worth a try.

And that’s what you need to do today.

Believe in yourself and do the brave thing, even (especially) if it scares you.

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In Seeking encouragement

The fear and the thrill of the fall

I have been ice skating three or four times in my life and every time I set foot on the ice I feel the same sensation.

The wobbly knees. The racing heart. The sheer terror of trying to move the thin blades on the slippery ice.

For the first few minutes I am nearly paralyzed. I jump at every passing person’s shadow. I teeter on the edge of the rink. I breathe deeply and attempt to slide forwards but the motion is less smooth and more like a drunken stagger.

If I could only quieten my noisy mind and still my anxious heart, I know I could do this.

But the fear of falling always slows me down.

The panicked feeling of losing control makes my legs stop working.

As I look around, I see kids who barely come up to my knees, who are careening around without a care in the world. I wonder why that is?

Is it because they have sweet, innocent minds not yet tainted by the worries of this world? Is it because they’ve fallen once and they know it’s not so bad, so the falling no longer scares them? Or perhaps, it is just because they are closer to the ground so when they fall it doesn’t hurt as much.

I wish I had their fervor. I wish I could skate with their gusto. I wish I too, wasn’t afraid of falling.

The thing about fear is that it immobilizes us. It keeps us rigid, tense and hyper-aware of our surroundings. It prevents us from having the fluidity needed to move forwards.

There is something known as the fear-tension-pain cycle which women often experience in childbirth. The more afraid a woman feels about giving birth, the more tense she becomes and the more tense she becomes, the more pain she feels which leads to more fear.

To break the cycle, she must lean into the pain. She must face the fear and reduce the tension.

I see life as somewhat similar to giving birth.

We are constantly creating something out of nothing. Painting gentle strokes onto the canvas of our lives. Making art and beauty with the words we speak out, sing in the shower and whisper under our breath.

And in this birthing of something new and not yet known, we have to lean into the pain of the process. If we give into the fear, if we allow ourselves to tense up or pull back, we’ll find ourselves stuck.

Our ideas will run dry, our dreams will fade in the sunlight, our creativity will crumble like dust.

We have to allow ourselves to feel the pain in order to create. We must push through that fear of falling and make something anyway.

We have to be like those little children, unhindered by the slippery ice and sharp blades. Undaunted by the chill in the air and their lack of coordination.

To live, we simply must fall.

And that is what scares me the most. The lack of control. The absence of order.

There isn’t a road map for following your dreams or a safety net for falling in love, it’s just you and the ice. Miles of frozen water stretch out before you. An endless, unmarred horizon. A blank, white unknown.

At some point all of us are faced with a choice, will we hold ourselves back or will we wobble out onto the ice?

There is a time to hold back and there is a time to leap forwards, the key is recognising which move will serve you best.

I’ve been foolish with this decision before and of course, I have been hurt in the process.

But what I have found is that most often, it is better to take the leap because the fall is never as far or us fatal as I am expecting. And somehow, I always recover after the fall. It’s as if the fall makes me stronger. I suppose that dropping down to the lowest possible place means there is nowhere to go but up.

Taking a risk isn’t the safe option but it’s the only one that will allow you to fly.

You’ll never know how it feels to glide around the rink if you don’t step out onto the ice. You’ll never find love if you keep your heart locked up. You’ll never experience an adventure if you don’t seek it out. You’ll never know your full potential if you don’t give yourself a chance.

Because the other thing about the fall is this…it’s exhilarating. It’s breathtaking. It’s intoxicating.

The reason we come back time and time again is because the fall makes us feel alive. Fully human. Impossibly free.

The truth is, our broken bones will heal. Our shattered hearts will mend. Our deflated ego will be restored. What do we really have to fear when we’ve survived every fall we’ve ever had?

Because the alternative is to live a despondent life. To stick to the side of the rink. To hide ourselves away from anyone and anything that could hurt us. To never know the dizzy, dancing way it feels to take a running leap.

I don’t want to live that way.

I don’t want to be afraid.

I don’t want my thirst for control to limit me.

I’d rather fall on my face a thousand times than be the kind of person who isn’t willing to try.

“When you get the choice to sit it out or to dance, I hope you dance.” – Lee Ann Womack

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