Fear To Take Action
Sometime in January, before the world took a turn that we should all have seen coming, I performed a Marie Condo session on my desk and stuffed some notes into my daily journal binder for safekeeping. Between then and now, the pandemic hit, my immune system decided to revolt, and my family and I moved across the world from Tokyo to Vancouver.
As part of setting up my desk and attempting to make everything in my life as simple as possible, I yanked out all of the post-it-notes, folded paper, and postcards out of my journal and reviewed them all. One note, in particular, came as a surprise. One side was full of thoughts I wrote during a session with my tele-therapist about lizard brains and how the stress cycle works, and on the other side is a full page of notes from an Insight Timer course I attended about conscious goal setting. It was a list of my five conscious goals, the fears related to each of them, and how I was going to face or deal with each one of them:
Move to Vancouver
Fund Witch Kit Kickstarter project
Grow my business
Publish the Interest-Driven Life book
Get accepted into UBC grad school
I was pretty excited when I realized that I had knocked the first two goals off my list, with better than expected results and I was actively pursuing the remainder.
This is an insight into the fear behind my first two goals, my plan to address them at the time, and the current status.
Move to Vancouver
Fear
I’ll hate living there
I’ll feel cut off from the US
I won’t be able to run my business
My family won’t care that I moved home
It will be too expensive
How To Deal With It
Explore it like it’s a new city.
Find opportunities locally
Focus on making business work and don’t panic or get derailed
Set dates to hang out with family
Expenses will be about the same as Tokyo and less than LA - create a budget and stick to it.
Worst Case + Backup Plan
Get a job
Use savings
Evaluate how we feel after one year.
Sacrifice: Having a yard
Temptation: Move to Mom’s house on the island even tho I want to live in Vancouver
Status
Moved. Happier than I could have imagined (even when it rains). Actively chatting with family and school friends. Much easier to work on my business from here than Tokyo.
Witch Kit
Fear
We won’t get 100 backers for Kickstarter Make:100
People won’t like the idea
Difficult to work with someone I don’t know well
How To Deal With It
Remember that you have done a successful Kickstarter in the past
Trust that you know how to find backers
Reach out to people and communities that share your interest
Worst Case + Backup Plan
It’s OK if it doesn’t get funded - it’s an experiment to see if others like the idea
Sacrifice: my ego
Temptation: give up and don’t do it
Status
The Kickstarter project was successful and everyone is happy with their witch kits. It was hard to do this project during the pandemic but we made it work.
I reduced my anxiety and paralyzing fear by writing down my worries and strategizing how to deal with them. It provided me with a plan to move forward rather than ruminating on all the reasons I couldn't do something and being too fearful of taking action. There's a mantra to "Start Today," but without a plan and fear in your gut, that can sound much easier said than done.
In the process of pursuing your interest-driven life goals, you will face doubts and fears and experience anxiety. With tools to understand what is standing in your way and a plan to break down the barriers, you will be able to move past your fears and start today.
“Today I choose courage over comfort. ”