And in the blink of an eye, the festive period is over. The weeks of planning and preparing for Christmas have come and gone, and slowly you’re getting back to knowing where you are, the day of the week and the time zone in which you live as you come to the end of the first full working week of January. You may have even clocked the Cadbury Mini eggs that are slowly being added to the end of the aisles in supermarkets…yes, already! But it’s not just the start of another year, it’s the beginning of another decade.

Like most, the last decade brought great loss, painful goodbyes and various challenges. It equally brought new qualifications, new experiences, a few holiday destinations which were ticked off the list including one of the seven wonders of the world, and it also brought the opportunity for new beginnings in the form of a relocation after being based in the same spot for 15 years.

Whilst I didn’t want to wish the last little bit of 2019 away and completely ignore the last decade, I was starting to crave a New Year and fresh start. The last 10 years dealt with some of the biggest changes in my life to date but whilst I was reflecting on my early morning Christmas day walk (and again with a few cheeky glasses of bubbles on Boxing Day!) I knew there were things I needed to address which I wasn’t really ready to previously. Had fear maybe got the better of me?

As I stand staring at my book case with my head tilted, trying to determine which books to re-gift or donate in order to make room for the new Christmas arrivals, ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers popped out at me. I read this book back in my early 20s whilst on holiday in Spain – I can’t quite recall the reason why but it was long enough ago for me to have the urge to open it up again. As I flicked through the pages, my thumb stopped at a page with the following quote:

‘If everybody feels fear when approaching something new in life, yet so many are out there “doing it” despite the fear, then we must conclude that fear is not the problem.’

Susan Jeffers, 1991

Susan Jeffers goes on to explain that it isn’t necessarily fear which is the problem but how we hold it, and we can either hold it from a place of Pain or a place of Power. (And when I say Power, it is defined as a positive energy which will bring action and self love – not the type of power you roll your eyes at because someone is being dictatorial in order to make themselves feel important). In dealing with the fear, the aim is to move yourself along the continuum from a position of Pain to a position of Power, or rather so you can get to a place where you can get yourself to do what you want to do.

As I’m reading further, I’m recognising that I was in the phase of paralysis in relation to challenges I hadn’t overcome, one in particular, and when you couple that with work being the main distraction, it’s easy to see why I felt I was drifting a little towards the end of last year. At times, it was much easier to stay late and put all my energy into the likes of Business Cases, activity planning and breach dates, and suppress the need to make the journey from paralysis to action. I’m not saying I generated all of this work I stayed late to do – the demands and deadlines were and are very much still there – I think my peers would agree with me on this point – but in trying to meet the demands of work, priorities got a little muddled. Let’s face it in the current climate, the work is always going to be there no matter how late you stay or how early you check your e-mails in a morning.  

I have no regrets over the last decade, only experiences to learn from but you could say that some of the last decade will somewhat be my motivation in overcoming some hurdles in 2020 which have been on my mind for some time. It may seem pretty obvious but eventually you may get to a place where you have no choice but to take action, and in some ways, I have reached this point.

So…here’s to 2020, the new year and the new decade. And if there is anything you would like to overcome or if there is a goal you’d like to achieve, it may not be easy – and I certainly don’t have it all figured out yet – but may you also at some point be brave enough to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’

References

Susan Jeffers (1991) Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway Arrow Books:London

Are you operating from a position of Pain or Power? Did you enjoy this blog? Please leave a comment below. Feel free to follow me on Instagram @laura_infinefettle