courage

Five Steps to Move Past Self Doubt

May 8, 2013emilydownward

What if I fail?

What if I’m not good enough?

This will never work.

How the hell am I going to do this?

I don’t know what to do next, but I should do something. What am I supposed to do?

Who do I think I am?

What if I make a mistake (AGAIN)?

What if I’m making the wrong choice?

Ah, my old friend Self Doubt. There have been times in my life when I felt confident, but it seems those times are fewer than the ones in which I’ve been accompanied by my steadfast companion Self Doubt. I honestly thought, by this point in my life, I would be past all this nonsense, that I would have mastered the doubts and felt more sure of myself and my abilities. Lately, I’ve stopped trying to get rid of it. I’ve come to accept that Doubt’s along for the ride. In fact, as long as I keep trying new things – and I do so love new experiences and challenges – then Self Doubt will continue to be my companion.

I’ll admit, there are times when Self Doubt gets the better of me, when I am so wrapped up in all the “what if’s” and “I can’t’s” that I’m paralyzed into indecision. But I’ve found that these simple steps can help me continue to move forward:

Speak your fears. Often times, the fears seem so large in my head, but if I actually say them out loud to a compassionate witness, they are so silly I might even laugh. Speaking them out loud can take the energy right out of them. It’s important to find the right person to share them with – I highly recommend NOT saying them to someone you know is a worry-wort. Bless their hearts, but they will just stir it up to be worse and more fearful. Find someone you know can provide calm, honest feedback, and if you don’t have someone like this, hire a coach to be your sounding board.
It’s all feedback. Evaluate your fears and determine which have merit. They may be trying to tell you something, like you need to do more research or preparation. Or they may just be frightened in general. It helps me to evaluate them from a higher perspective, taking myself out of the moment and looking at it from the broad picture of my life.
Minimize risk where possible. If your doubts have merit, address those issues to minimize risk where you can. Determine what is acceptable risk to you, and realize that for each of us that’s different.
Wait to worry. What do you know and what do you not know? Focus on what you know, and wait to worry about the possible outcomes until you know more. There is always time to worry about that later. (Or not.)
Take a leap of faith. At some point, you’re going to have to take that leap, or at least a step, into the unknown. After you have done the research, made preparations as best you can, and addressed the potential risks, take a chance. It actually helps me to think of worst-case scenarios and figure out how I would deal with them. Yes, I may fail. I have failed before, some real whoppers of failures, and I have survived them. This too shall pass.

(Full disclosure: I had doubts about posting this.)

To Change or Not to Change

September 26, 2012emilydownward

I’ve always been fascinated by the interplay between change and resistance to change. Our lives, as humans, are constantly changing, and yet, we often resist this inevitability and try to cling to things, whether it’s relationships, jobs, our youth, children, pets, or even our favorite pair of jeans.

Our bodies are built for homeostasis – the state of maintaining or remaining the same. Our biological systems work to maintain our temperature, heart rate, blood pressure. We are geared for “stasis” – the same – and yet we are constantly evolving, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Sometimes we are forced to change by events and circumstances outside of ourselves. We get dumped, fired, reassigned, and lose people we love. Massive changes cause us to work through our emotions and re-evaluate our position.

And then there are the times when we initiate change. We decide to make a move, change the way we’ve been doing things, or start a new routine. Generally, there’s a lot that happens “behind the scenes” before the change becomes apparent to the outside. I work with a lot of clients who are contemplating change or who recognize that what they’ve been doing isn’t working for them anymore, so they are open to doing things differently. I help them explore their feelings and thoughts about what’s going on and invite them to create a dream of what they really want, and then a plan to achieve it.

To make a change takes courage. Willingness to try and willingness to take a risk. Facing the idea that you might not succeed on the first attempt. I see clients with amazing courage and resilience and applaud them as they make positive changes for themselves and start to realize they can create the life they want. And as they see the positive changes for themselves, they gain confidence and empowerment and more joy.

And then they get hit with the Change-Back Attacks. Martha Beck coined the phrase to describe how those closest to you – your friends, family, coworkers – react to your new changes. Generally, as I mentioned, we humans resist change, and when one person makes some big changes, it upsets the homeostasis of the group. Others who are perfectly happy with the way things have been may try to cajole, force, manipulate or chide you back into familiar behaviors.

The best way to handle Change-Back Attacks is with love and compassion. Listen and understand that they are coming from a place of resistance, and if possible, calmly state your intentions. You can love and accept them for how they are without agreeing with them. Continue to follow your truth, your passion, and your capacity for love increases.

Facing your Fears

April 18, 2012emilydownward

What are you most afraid of? What about it scares you?

One of my fears is the fear of heights. Even watching a television show or movie where the actor is precariously perched on a high ledge or walking a tightrope makes my palms begin to sweat. (In fact, my palms just got a little sweaty even writing that!)

I wasn’t always afraid of heights…when I was 8 years old, we lived in St. Louis. I visited the Arch several times. On one visit, after riding the rickety elevator up to the top with my dad, I climbed up to the little window and leaned my head up against it.

“Look, Daddy! If you lean way over you can see the bottom of the Arch!”

My dad didn’t join me in my discovery. It was enough for him just to hear me say it!

I’ve learned that babies are born with just two fears: the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. All other fears are learned. So whether I learned my fear of heights from falling out of a tree or from my dad warning me not to get too close to the edge of a platform, I learned it. It’s not a bad fear, as fears go. I can see how it can be protective.

However, I am also very stubborn. I don’t like to be held back by things, and I don’t like chickening out of a good challenge. So several years ago, when my team at work when out to a ropes course, I tried everything. Most of the exercises were “team building” — different activities to get us to work together and succeed as a team. But one of the final, optional exercises was individual. I volunteered.

The goal was to climb up a telephone pole (standard height, which is WAY high). Once you reached the top, you had to stand on top of it. (FYI, telephone poles aren’t that wide, so my size 9 feet were hanging off both the front and back a little.) Hold on…have to wipe my palms….okay, so once you’re standing at the top of this pole, you have to jump and grab a trapeze bar. It’s not close. You really have to push and jump for it.

It took me several minutes to get to the standing position. And then I had to contemplate and really screw up every vestige of courage I had, and then plan a bit more. Finally, I jumped with all my might and reached for the bar.

My fingers JUST touched the bar, and I saw the bar swing out of reach as I felt myself falling. I began screaming.

Now, yes, they did have all the safety gear on me, and although I felt the falling, I didn’t hit the ground like a sack of flour. They eased me down. But by that time, I was hysterical. Crying. Gulping for air. Repeating, “I missed the bar! I missed the bar! I missed the bar!”

My coworkers tried to reassure me, telling me I was safe.

Oh, God. My coworkers are seeing me go absolutely crazy hysterical.

I was in full fight-or-flight mode, though, and there was no graceful way out.

Looking back at it now, it’s certainly not one of my finer moments. Not nearly as sweet as my triumph at finishing the triathlon, family and friends (and strangers) cheering me on as I cross the finish line. But it taught me nearly as much as completing that tri did. From this hellish telephone pole experience I learned:

1. I shouldn’t pursue work as a telephone repair person. I also probably shouldn’t try for a job in a trapeze act.

2. I didn’t die. While I FELT like I was going to several times (at the top of the pole, just missing the trapeze bar, falling, and even riding the panic attack on the ground), I didn’t. Our brains are really good at catastrophizing — imagining the worst outcomes — but they are just as capable of opportunity mining. We just have to focus our incredibly powerful brains in that direction.

3. I have courage. Maybe even more than I thought I did. I’m glad I tested it, because knowing I did this crazy stunt (or attempted to), I was better able to make other leaps, to different jobs, to different cities, to new relationships.

So, I wonder, what are you afraid of? Where in your life do you need to make a leap?

(And no, that picture isn’t of me. Although someone WAS taking pictures that day, I have completely forgotten where I stashed them.)

October 11, 2011emilydownward

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

I have my share of Apple products and love them. But I was also inspired by Steve Jobs and the way he approached his life.

Launching my own business as a life coach, many people have remarked to me that it’s very brave of me, that it takes courage to follow your dreams. They say it with a bit of amazement and wistfulness on their faces. And when I say that they, too, can follow their dreams, change their career and do what they love, they begin to tell me all the reasons why they can’t.

“I’m too old to make a change. I should have done it when I was younger, but now I have to think about retirement.”
“I have too many responsibilities – kids, a mortgage, a spouse to support. You can do it because you don’t have all that.”
“I can’t quit my job because I need the benefits (particularly insurance). And I can’t get my own insurance like you did because of my health problems.”
“I can’t make enough money if I did what I want to do.”

It’s interesting the way our minds work. Our culture is very left-brain dominant, and the left brain looks to the past and predicts the future based on the patterns it sees in the past. This is helpful when you are learning a new skill, but not so helpful for “out of the box” thinking. The left brain also looks for evidence to prove its theories are correct, so if we think a thought of “I can’t make enough money being an artist,” we will look for and find examples of starving artists, of people who only do their art on the weekends and keep working at a job they loathe. If you tell someone to go into a room for 5 minutes and look for as many red objects as possible, and when they exit, ask them how many blue objects they saw, they will be at a loss. Our brains are programmed that way.

The cool thing is — our brains are a tool, not our whole being. We can use them for our purposes, instead of letting our thoughts rule us. A belief is just a thought we’ve said to ourselves over and over again. If it’s working for you, great! If not, choose to believe something different. For example, make a list of all the artists you know of that ARE making a living, and a good one at that, by following their passion. (Hint: NY and Hollywood have lots of examples!)

Trying something new isn’t easy. But for me, staying with what wasn’t working wasn’t easy either. So I decided to try something else. And I am so very happy that I did.