I’m taking a certification exam in a couple of weeks, and it has been (gasp) over 25 years since I took a sit down exam. My boss hasn’t requested it. My job doesn’t require it and I paid for it myself. If anything I’m doing it because I’ve learned, paradoxically, that scaring myself is a really good thing.
Preparing for this test is reminding me of the other ways I’ve scared myself in the past several years. I changed careers twice before I found my calling. I engineered myself a layoff from a job I wasn’t happy with at the depth of the “great recession” believing I would find something better. The something better took me two thirds of the way across the country, away from friends, family and my home of 25 years.
The paradox is, all these very scary leaps of faith have ended up making me stronger. They’ve made me more likely to tell truth to power, encouraged me to experiment with new marketing tools, and made it easier for me to reach out to prospective clients, all of which have made me better at my job.
The life lesson is, when the thing you are avoiding happens to you, it usually loses its power to frighten you anymore.
So tell me, what are you willing to scare yourself into mastering?
aecsarah 