There is scary-excitement that comes with trying something new. When I’m doing something challenging for the first time, it’s frightening to be faced with so much newness. I’ve been using this year to look at times that I’ve forged ahead with unfamiliar things that scared me. I would never have described myself as adventurous, but I’ve come to recognize that I actually like a steep learning curve: it’s thrilling. This was not always the case.
Found Courage In Past Experiences
I can’t see myself ever joining the Amazing Race but when I look back, I can see examples of my adventurous spirit. Years ago when we were on holiday, I courageously overcame my fear of heights to do a treetop walk and zip-lining obstacle course. At the time, I remember not wanting my daughter to see that I was afraid of climbing to the top of the tree, because she was excited to do it. I didn’t want to spoil a fun, family activity. I was so proud of myself for surviving that experience, even though I was terrified, and my knees were jelly. I still treasure the photo of us all in our climbing gear.
Price Of Staying In My Comfort Zone
There were times when I resisted trying new things and stayed in my safe and familiar spot. For many years I taught the same grade. It was familiar and comfortable to know what to expect each year and to have all the lessons and resources organized to do the job. But I found myself feeling stagnant. It was always the same. I didn’t feel like I was learning anything new but I was afraid to change grade. The older students were all taller than me and I didn’t know how to relate to them. Could I even remember how to do long division?
Feeling Like An Imposter
When I did finally take a leap and try a new grade, I was overcome by imposter syndrome. Surely, the older students would know that I was new to this and won’t want to learn from me. What if they know more about a subject than I do? How will I keep their attention when I can’t sing cute hand-clapping rhymes with older kids? I was completely out of my comfort zone.
Success With These Tools
I realize now that I used some effective tools to help me overcome my fears. In my zip-lining experience, I used, “fake it ’til you make it.” In my grade changing adventure, I found a mentor who was experienced with teaching older students and she guided me through my first year. I also learned that I had many skills that transferred from teaching younger students to teaching the older ones. I realized that older students were just young kids in taller bodies. I challenged my initial beliefs about the job using unbiased observations. Older students still liked to do kid stuff and I could use a lot of the methods that I was used to. (Even 10 year olds like to build forts to investigate force in science.)
Other Tools To Help Build Courage
Here are some more tools for helping make that jump into the unknown:
- acknowledge your fear (yup, I’m afraid of this)
- confront your fear and understand what specific things scare you
- positive self-talk (I can do it!)
- understand that you will feel uncomfortable and that’s ok
- start small with trying a little thing that scares you and move on from there, making courage a habit*
The Best Reasons To Overcome Fear
Taking the chance to do something new and different still scares me. But, when I look at how much I’ve learned from those experiences, I can’t deny myself the growth by being afraid to try them. We only live once.
*To learn more about building courage, click here.
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