One of the books I frequently recommend to clients is Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. Someone tweeted about it today and I wondered how I was getting on with ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway’ and realised that for me the fear of being seen to be a fool seems be a theme – and one I certainly need to get over.
I was looking after the neighbours cats this weekend. Unfortunately they left the key in the back door which meant I was unable to get into the house. So I ended up kneeling at the back door shouting and then feeding the cats through the cat flap. I tweeted to say I’d felt very foolish as I imagined what the neighbours might think as they watched or heard me shouting at a cat flap without understanding why! Of course in this instance I did it anyway and released the fear of being seen to be a fool.
After a workshop recently I was invited by the FCP coaching tool I use to consider how I might have been dishonest in my facilitation. On reflection I realised that my desire to not be seen by everyone as a fool had meant at some points in the workshop I had perhaps diluted my message. I wanted everyone to get what I was saying not just 80% and so pulled back at certain points that I knew the 20% would react to. It came as a shock to realise that this pattern was short changing the 80%. Which of course started a whole exploration of what % would be acceptable. That is what % of my audience do I want to truly speak too and make a difference for 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 5 ? or should I be happy if one person gets insights from what I’m saying?
On further analysis I also wonder how often I pull back in blogs and tweets for the same reason. I wonder how much the desire to be liked and even considered for blogger of the month (Thank you) gets in the way of the blogs being truly authentic? I’m not sure I know the answer and not even sure I’m asking the right question either. By way of exploration this month I’m not going to allow the dilution to take place for blogs and let’s see what happens. Either I’ll learn it’s a useful belief that helps tone me down or I’ll learn that I need to feel the fear and do it anyway more often.
