Fear

At the beginning of the last school year I started making my students journal a few days a week I think mainly because I have seen so much growth come from journaling in my own life. Today I gave them the quote “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” by Michael Jordan and as we were discussing their thoughts about the quote it was like a light bulb went off…. Failure is a direct indicator of whether we are moving forward in life or just standing still.

How have I not thought of failure that way before? I hate for people to see me fail, for people to see that I don't have it all together but as one of my darling students very eagerly stated… “if you're not failing you're not trying either”. I know there are a lot of things in life that I have just not done because I was afraid… afraid of what people would think, of disappointing people, of not having enough money, of not getting it right, of not having all of the details, of making the wrong choice...and the list goes on. Not doing things because I was afraid also means just plain not doing things, literally being paralyzed and just doing the same ole thing because that is what I have always done.

What a crazy way to live, huh? But you know what, I think that is a lot of us. We have all of these dreams, we have these big things that we really would love to do in life but we are afraid and so we just put them off and do nothing.

Let me say it again for those in the back…  failure is the best indicator that you are making progress! Failure means you are trying, it means you are taking risks, it means you are putting yourself out there. Failure means you are really living. Failure is not final, it is certainly not the end  and perhaps it is really just the beginning.

Over the past few years there have been quite a few things that have really really scared me and there are a whole lot of things in my life right now that I have NO clue how they will turn out, like way out of my comfort zone things, but I am still taking the risk. Friends, are you just sitting paralyzed in fear and not doing anything because you are afraid of how it might turn out? I want to challenge you today to do something that scares you, something that might be just a little bit out of your comfort zone, something that maybe you have wanted to do for a long time now but have always put it off. Nothing really great comes from comfort zones so take the risk, find something that scares you just a bit because I know I would so much rather be moving forward scared than not to be moving at all.