Challenge 4: Year of Fear wrapup
The 30 days of doing something that scares me (or makes me uncomfortable) challenge is over.
Activity 28 (Sunday): I bought an adult sized hula hoop because apparently this is a good activity to develop core strength. It’s been on my to-do list for over 12 months, and I finally did it. My next challenge was to find somewhere with enough room to use it. I didn’t want to use the back yard because I don’t think I’d find a big enough space uncontaminated by chook shit. The front yard is too small, so it had to be open space in public (ish) view. I felt very awkward about this because I knew i’d be no good at this (which proved to be correct) so I imagined people driving or walking past laughing at me. To make it easier I took Kramstable with me. I know. Use the kid as an excuse for your kid-like behaviour. He thought it was hilarious. I don’t mind being laughed at by him.
Fearometer: 6/10. I have no idea how to hula hoop. I’m doing this in public. People will see me!
How I felt before doing it: Nervous
How I felt while I was doing it: More concerned with trying to keep the thing moving than with whether people were watching me (they weren’t)
Would I do it again: Once my muscles recover, yes.
Activity 29 (Monday): I did nothing that made me uncomfortable.
Activity 30 (Tuesday): Follow up on Activity 22 (get an outstanding medical check) – so I am still waiting to hear if I have the all clear. It had been a week, so I was starting to worry if I’d been rejected. They are still assessing it and I should know by the end of the week. That’s tomorrow.
And the 30 days is over. I feel like I haven’t done it justice because several of the things I did weren’t super scary. but also they were things that had been on my wanna-do list for ages – sometimes years – and something was holding me back from doing them. Whether it was out and out fear, or more of a low-level “I’m not sure if this will work out so I’ll leave it for a bit” is an interesting question. I guess in one sense it doesn’t matter, because this challenge kicked me into doing them, where otherwise they might have been on my wanna do list for three or four more years (or forever). So I’m grateful for having started this challenge because even little steps are better than no steps.
I read a blog post during the week from Kylie Dunn, who is the author of one of the books that helped inspire my project (Do Share Inspire), where she talks about the “experimental mindset”. She says experimenting, rather than wanting to make specific changes, was the key to her “Year of TED” project and that “the experimental mindset is an openness to try new things, without a fear of failure”. So with that in mind, even if I didn’t do 30 activities that terrified me, I succeeded in completing the experiment.
Yay me!
In her post, Kylie outlines a five step process for applying an experimental mindset:
- Consider the tip, advice, lifehack etc. that you want to apply to your life – what does it look like as a daily or weekly action?
- Define what you are going to do to experiment with that idea – including how you are going to evaluate it.
- Do that for 30 days – and on days that you forget, gently remind yourself that this is an area of focus for a short period.
- Evaluate the contribution of those actions in your life – what will you keep? what will you reject? what might you try again?
- Apply the lessons and start your next experiment.
I think this is a good process to follow and one that might give my project a bit more structure.
So for the purpose of wrapping up 30 days of fear, I think that it’s been a great way to get me doing things that I’ve been avoiding for a long time, no matter what the reason. I don’t think that “doing something that scares me” has to be a big scary thing every day. It can be as simple as calling someone who I could have emailed, asking someone in a shop to explain something to me (that’s their job!), or going into a shop I’ve never been to before. I believe that if I start to get used to feeling uncomfortable in these type of situations, it will make it easier when I want to do things that are a bit more scary, because I’ll recognise the feeling and I’ll know that I’m not going to die when I feel like that.
I think I can continue to learn from this challenge by looking for things that I’m putting off because I’m scared or nervous, acknowledging the fear, and doing them anyway. And every so often picking something off the “wild and crazy” list to shake things up a bit, because I’ve really enjoyed this challenge and I don’t want to let being scared stop me from doing things that sound like they’d be fun or interesting.
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This makes me want to go and buy a hula hoop! I was always rubbish at it as a kid so I don’t imagine I’ll be any better now, but it’d be a lot of fun 🙂 And I love the idea of this 30 day project.
It was fun! Though I’m not sure if it was responsible for me putting my back out a couple of days later!
Haha! It inspired me to go and play on some swings in the park after I’d been for a run this morning, so thank you ? Hope your back has recovered!!
It’s so great to see you make it to the end! And, it’s been extra fun as you’ve shared and rated each challenge. I love how it has opened your eyes to opportunities around you and I hope you continue to find little ways every day to lean into risk! <3
Thanks so much for your support Kendra <3
You did it! The things you have learned and are taking away from it sound great, plus it is fabulous that you got some things done that you’ve been putting off.
You impress the hell out of me. Continually.
Thank you <3 I'm enjoying the process. When I'm not complaining about my sore back!