This past Saturday, in my confidence class, we had some awesome conversation about doing things out of our comfort zones.

Like driving a car for the first time.

Public speaking and sharing our stories.

Organizing events and starting businesses.

Writing books, or making art.

All things that we might not have done before.

And often things that we expect ourselves to be… perfect at.

I know, it sounds ridiculous if you see this in writing.

I mean – how in the world could we expect ourselves to be perfect at something that we’ve not done before, right?

And yet, that’s often what happens in our mind.

We expect ourselves to nail it.

Right away.

From the get-go.

No mistakes.

No stumbles.

And when we have that expectation, what happens most of the time?

Right – we don’t take any action at all.

Because we don’t wanna shatter that image of perfection that we have been dreaming up in our mind.

We wanna preserve that precious ideal.

And so it’s safer not to take action.

Or – if we really push ourselves – to do an half-hearted attempt – one foot in, one foot out.

But then – of course – the result is that we don’t really learn or get better or more comfortable at doing that new, unfamiliar thing.

And then – of course – we make that mean that we are not good at this new thing and will never be.

Forgetting that we didn’t even really give it an all-in go to begin with.

So fascinating, right?

But imagine how different things would be if we would allow ourselves to be a beginner, to NOT get it right, to stumble over our words, to write that shitty first draft, to ask lots of questions when things are not clear, to screw up and then give it another go.

Imagine for a moment how much more we’d have accomplished, learned, experienced.

Imagine for a moment how much more confident we’d feel about ourselves and what we’re truly capable of.

Not because things are perfect, but because we allow them not to be.

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