One Scary-Exciting Thing a Day

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about doing one scary thing a day. The practice has been very helpful for me and my clients but a recent conversation made me think I wasn’t clear enough with that post.

As Brené Brown says: “Clear is kind, unclear is unkind.”

I was talking to a friend who reads my blog while we were walking and she told me about a situation that was happening at work. Six months ago, she’d expressed interest in being part of an event that was going to happen this summer. Since then, she’d heard nothing about the event until this week, when the person in charge of the event asked her to commit to doing it. The event was a multi-day summit for a group of clients who had already signed on.

I asked what my friend’s role was going to be. She said she would be teaching some of the workshops, but she didn’t know the schedule, what workshops she’d be teaching, what resources she would have, how much time she’d be allotted to work on the summit, or who else would be working on the summit.

The lead on the project said she wasn’t planning to create the schedule or do any of the logistics until she had a firm commitment from my friend, and one other person who had expressed interest, but who was now backing away rapidly because of the lack of structure and content.

“She wants me to ‘trust’ her to get it done,” my friend told me. “Oh, and she’s handed in her resignation!” She doesn’t have a new job yet, but if she gets one, she’ll be gone by the time the summit happens.”

“So, do you trust her?”

“No way!”

I asked my friend if she really wanted to do this summit.

“No, I have plenty of things I’d rather be doing,” she said.

“Then what’s the problem?” I stopped walking to face her. “Why are you even considering it?”

“Well, I read your blog about doing scary things and I thought maybe I should do this because it’s scary.”

Oh.

We started walking again as I absorbed this surprising statement.

When I say, “Do one scary thing a day,” I mean, “Do one scary- exciting thing a day.”

Think about something you’d really like to do but…

• you’re afraid of what other people will think, or
• you’re not 100% sure it will work out, or
• it seems selfish because it’s only for you, not for somebody else.

That’s scary-exciting: This would be great if only I were brave enough…smart enough…good enough.

Scary-exciting = something you would do if your limiting beliefs (primitive brain) didn’t hold you back.

There are some things that are just scary. Or even scary-yucky.

Those are the things you don’t want to do. At all.

So don’t do them.

I asked my friend if preparing for and working at this summit was scary-exciting to her or scary-yucky.

“Scary-yucky.” Then she added, “Duh.”

(She’s a good friend.)

“Then don’t do it.” I said. “Duh.”

(She’s a very good friend.)

What’s scary-exciting to you? Breathe through the fear, and do it. What’s scary-yucky to you? Don’t do it!

Originally published at http://dianemackinnon.com.