Sarah Gibbard Cook
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On Doing What Scares You

6/3/2019

5 Comments

 
When I commuted to work in downtown Chicago, I sometimes crossed outdoors between moving cars on the elevated train, not to reach a different car but to practice facing a fear.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”* Something not dangerous or foolhardy, but dysfunctionally intimidating. For some it’s public speaking, complex paperwork, or raising a touchy issue with a friend. The “Fear” I burned in a New Year’s Eve bonfire involved unfamiliar machines and bus systems. The more I use them, the less they scare me.

Two caveats. First, advice to leave your comfort zone suggests a false dichotomy between discomfort and being stuck in a rut. There are far-from-boring ways to be “in the zone”: creating, writing, learning, running on the beach. No need to break the flow just because it doesn’t scare you.

Second, desensitization isn’t the only way to ease fear. In the body, a case of nerves looks much the same as excitement. Even for those of us not adrenalin junkies, it may be easier to reframe unhappy jitters as happy ones than to calm ourselves down. A wiser adage might be, “Do one thing every day that excites you.”

​*Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, June 1997. Read here for quote history and misattributions.
5 Comments
Connie Gill
6/5/2019 05:48:56 pm

I love "do one thing every day that excites you." It's much more approachable.

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Sarah link
6/5/2019 09:47:38 pm

Connie, glad it appeals to you, too. I like knowing the difference between nervous and excited is in how we frame it. Excited is definitely more fun.

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Rebecca link
6/7/2019 11:39:18 pm

I like that take on it too! Seems a lot friendlier and more fun. : ) Rebecca

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Sarah link
6/8/2019 08:26:32 am

Sometimes the excitement and the nervousness are two wolves battling inside me. I try to feed the excitement one.

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papernow.org link
8/30/2019 09:44:18 pm

I guess, it’s really exciting to do things you’re quite hesitant to do. Your fear might be present, but soon you will learn to overcome it because you know that it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes, fear drives us to discover something about ourselves and we should be open to that. It’s not about doing foolish things; actions that might put you in danger. But it’s about doing something you haven’t tried yet. I am sure that there will always be fear. But once you learn to overcome it, you can be proud of yourself afterwards!

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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

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