The Power of Fear

In the last month, I've been into three totally different situations that have honestly really terrified me. Despite the fear, I pushed through one, chickened out of another, and with the last one, I found myself wavering between courage and caution (thankfully courage won out eventually!). Going through all this has taught me a lot about myself, what I'm actually capable of and why it was so much better to choose the scary path. We all experience so many things which scare us and that we don’t want to do, and so I wanted to share what I have learnt on The Journal.

So, what exactly where these moments? First, I had the daunting experience of giving my very first solo virtual talk. Then, I had the fear of walking into a drinks reception full of strangers at the start of a training program I joined – those first day of school feelings. Finally I went on a week-long off-piste skiing course that was mentally and physically more demanding than I had expected. Though these things might not seem related, the rollercoaster of emotions I went through for each was pretty much the same: stomach-twisting fear, a lot of "I really don’t want do this," cycling round my head, battling with myself over whether I had to, and finally, either pushing through or backing down.

I’m sharing these personal stories not just to relive my recent adventures, but to discuss how facing fears, no matter how big or small they are, is an emotionally challenging thing that teaches us a lot about who we are and who we want to be.