Something that has been on my mind recently is the intense fear that comes with stepping into the unknown. The uncomfortable. About doing the hard things and showing up and continuing to show up, even when results are still not present. This is the present land of my mind.
I have recently found myself in a season of life where I am being demanded to step into the uncomfortable. I have very much been led to take on the torch and strive forth into the unknown with nothing more than my faith and current knowledge to guide me. In theory and ideally, when I think about how I am being called to do, I think of myself in terms of ‘what a noble person am I to take on such a responsibility, what character!’
Theories are lovely in the abstract.
As I have been stepping in new territories all of the month of September, I did not feel noble, responsible and I felt constantly confronted with my lack of discipline- which I took as a shot to my character. I very much felt – and arguably still feel – like I am not meeting the standard I know I can in my life. I felt these things because I was repeatedly choosing to comfort myself from these hard feelings, which resulted in procrastination, which resulted in stronger feelings of inadequacy within myself. But the truth to these feelings? I wasn’t showing up.
September had a big lesson for me to learn: IT IS TIME TO DO. There is no more preparing I need to feel ‘ready’ to write, ‘ready’ to craft, ‘ready’ to *insert your dream*. There will never come a feeling of preparedness. I am capable of writing because I write, not because I read 200+ on the craft of writing and can tell you exactly how to structure a sentence. Such knowledge without application is rendered useless, because what does it matter if I can structure a sentence if I don’t ever write one? If I don’t DO the thing? This is a rather simple example, but replace writing with whatever it is you are feeling called to do or pursue. You may find you are also waiting for a feeling that will never come.
No more planning, no more prepping but it is time to DO. We often find ourselves wanting to be so readily prepared for anything in life that we get so caught up in preparing we fail to do the thing. The real failure.
So here I sit and type, fighting against my urge to review every word multiple times and to fine-tune this post into something that I declare ‘perfect’. The goal is to do, not achieve perfection. The goal is to share my soul, not be a perfect model for others to follow. That goal doesn’t require that I hyper-fixate on my words, it requires that I show up with my heart open, to type with candor and hit publish. Whatever else may follow, the unknown of having others receive my thoughts, will unfold as needed.
There is nothing else for me to worry about. I show up to do my part, as my heart feels called to, and the Universe will take it from there. But if we don’t show up, what are we telling the Universe?
