Doubt is Just Smart Fear

As a personal development fanatic, I’ve always heard and adhered to the theory that if you have doubts over something, then you probably shouldn’t do it. Same goes for when you consider a new goal and you either get stuck in the ‘what if…’ phase and don’t do anything about it, or else you get started and it seems like everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong.

The general consensus seems to be that in those situations it’s probably a sign that you should do something else instead. It’s called gut feeling for men and intuition for women.

That’s all fine and dandy and in some cases true, but what about the old cliché, ‘no pain, no gain’? The concept of having to go through something nasty makes us squirm. We live in a society of modern conveniences. Why take the hard road when we can pay someone else to do it for us or cut across the soft green grass instead? Bollocks to going down a road that may lead to danger. We might get hurt damn it.

BUT (and it’s a big but) I’m starting to doubt that having doubts about something means you should give up on it. Maybe, just maybe, the things we really want require some soul searching and some mental, emotional and physical preparation, and moral fortitude (aka nerve, spirit, guts…) before we are ready to go forth and claim them as our own. Perhaps it’s not like the followers of books such as ‘The Secret’ claim, that you just have to visualise what you want for long enough and hey presto there it is.

Maybe Rebecca West was right when she said,”Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.” Maybe life really is all about the journey and the lessons it teaches us. Maybe a bit of fear and doubt and all those other crappy feelings we loathe and avoid so much can lead us to really know and experience the true value of the things we want to gain and achieve. Maybe we need to toughen up and roll up our sleeves. That’s a lot of maybe’s but you never know, all that horrible stuff might help us grow a bit and get to know ourselves better in the process.

Maybe the only thing we have to do is make a choice about what we want. Step on to that path and so be it if there be fire-breathing dragons between us and our castles, princes and princesses. Bring it on.

It’s just a thought…

Tracey