Taking action has always terrified me. I hate making phone calls to my bank when I have noticed a mistake on my statement. I don’t even feel so great about calling to make a hair appointment. I can even be really bad about washing that final pan that just needs to soak for a bit.

So you can imagine how hard it might have been for me to start a blog and publish my first post on it.  If you thought that it might be paralyzing and that I would resist with all my might, you would be right.  I had read that it is always better to get a post done, even if it isn’t perfect.  I can always go back and edit it later.  This idea didn’t help me at all, since the fear is all about what you are going to think when you read it.  More specifically what you are going to think of me.  If it’s no good, well, there you go, I’m no good.

I cheated.  I wrote and published it, but didn’t let anyone know.  No chance for judgment.

I discovered some interesting things in the process.  I was still scared every time I went back to edit that first post.  I think I have made three edits so far.  Each time I hit the Publish button I felt a little sick inside.  It didn’t feel good until after I was done.

Myth number one:

Courage to create something and share it takes overcoming your fear.  

Anytime you share your creative work, you will probably still be afraid.  (If you aren’t, well, that is a topic for another post.) It’s just that no one admits how scared they are.  Not famous artists, not actors, not authors, no one I know of.  Okay, maybe Brene Brown.  (whom I love btw) It makes sense that for so many years as I have watched and admired creative people sharing their work, I assumed that because they had successfully shared, that it was easy for them.  Or had become easy for them. I’m guessing more often than not, I was wrong.

I also discovered these blog posts aren’t going to enter themselves. Action is critical to accomplishment, but not how I imagined. I have always thought about action as pushing through and forcing something. Probably I was always working on the wrong things.  Taking the steps to start this blog, write the posts didn’t feel hard at all once I started.

Myth Number Two:

Action is necessary but it is hard and requires force.

There is something I am defining as appropriate action that, albeit scary at times, flows naturally from us.  When I quiet my thoughts and let that my appropriate action bubble to the surface, the result is fantastic.  I mean that more literally.  I don’t mean that the result is really good, although it might be, I am saying that the amount of work that gets accomplished using this less than forceful method will seem like a fantasy.  Let it work for you, too.