I think we have all heard someone say at one time or another, “Just do it afraid”. It sounds so simple. Pick something that you really want to do, have always wanted to do, and just do it. Right? No.
If you are like me and have watched The Office start to finish more times than you can count, you probably remember the episode where Kevin wanted to ask his coworker on a date and he was super nervous about it, and he called himself a “textbook overthinker.” I could not relate to him more in that way! I think because of how careless (or carefree, depending on perspective) I was in my late teens and early 20s, I became more strategic when it comes to taking chances.
It’s not as easy for me as it once was to take risks.
But this could be a good thing as a whole because I was truly crazy. I think of everything that could go wrong, and convince myself that they will go wrong. I become completely frozen, then convince myself that I ate too much pizza before I went to sleep, so whatever I was trying to do can wait. This cycle can repeat for weeks or months, and sometimes it extends into years.
But ever since my birthday a few months ago, I feel like I stepped into a new phase of my life. I am somewhere in between 30 and 40, and even though many of my dreams and plans seem completely out of reach while I am in the thick of raising littles, I have taken a huge jump into something I said I was going to put to the side for a few more years. I honestly was trying to wait until the “perfect time.” Yes, I know there is no such thing. But surely there has to be a better time than this. But I figured I would keep making excuses for years, the same way I have been for the past four or five years. Maybe I am still as crazy deep down as I was in my 20s, but it is just taking a new form in the present.
I was watching one of my favorite Youtubers a couple of days ago, and she talked about how some of us aren’t doing the things we want to do because we are so busy consuming all the information about it before we begin. I am so guilty of this. It’s part of the overthinking I mentioned earlier. She said at some point, you do have to stop reading and just try a new skill. I absolutely agree with her, and I plan on taking her advice as I am in the beginning stages of practicing some new hobbies and skills in my home.
Life has so many unknowns, and no matter how prepared we are, there are some things we just are not going to have all the way figured out before we start. But we have to start. We don’t know what we are keeping ourselves from by not trying.
