Do Something That Scares You: Voice Memos

Photo from here.

There are so many things I never did or have not yet done because I'm afraid.  By afraid, I don't mean seriously in fear of death/harm/destruction (i.e. I have never swam in a shark cage and don't intend to) . . . I mean fearful of what other people might thing, of not doing something perfectly, of being ridiculed, or feeling self-conscious or unsure if I would succeed.  That sort of fear.

Often, later, I realize how silly those fears that stopped me were or realized that any negative experiences would probably have outweighed the enjoyment I might of gotten out of doing something I was interested in.  Other times, I've realized I don't care about the negative consequences or no longer value the opinion of those people I thought would judge me.  Many times, I've realized that a lot of the things I feared happening were extremely unlikely and how foolish it was for me to let those imaginings get in my way.

I like to remind myself of things I now do comfortably that at some point in my life I thought I would never be able to do.  It helps me remember that I am a capable person, that it's ok not to do something perfectly on the first try, and that I have proved many times that I can overcome fears--- especially all
those little, nagging fears we have all the time and try to ignore but often let stop us.

For example: I can drive a car on a highway with confidence--- in high school I did not believe this was possible.  Just this year I tried Zumba thinking that it would be a terrible, horrible embarrassment--- turns out it wasn't that embarrassing and actually no one in the class really cared how bad I was (they were focusing on doing their own thing!), especially if I owned it.  I have bought an airline ticket and flown to different parts of the country on my own--- without anything terrible happening like getting stranded somewhere unfamiliar without any money.

Over the past couple years, I have been trying to purposely do more things that scare me.  I want to stop stopping myself from doing things I want to do.  I want to go through life believing that I am capable as the next person.  I want to prove to myself that I don't have to live in fear . . . and that there really isn't a need to be fearful most of the time.

I've traveled to NYC on my own and navigated the subway.  I've searched out little-known nature trails on my own.  I've started taking photos and stopped feeling foolish when taking the camera out for a solo 'photo adventure' . . . even if it's just in the backyard. I've gone to movie on my own (I LOVE doing this now).  I'm happier for doing all these things and am living a fuller life and experiencing new, interesting things. 

As I face my fears, I'm going to try to write about them a little . . . whether they are big or small things . . . and hopefully this will encourage me to keep consciously facing my fears and keep remembering that I CAN do this.

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Have you ever felt so self-conscious about trying something new that you won't even let yourself see you try?  It sound ridiculous and I'm sure other people have had this problem so I'm going to admit it.  Sometimes I don't let myself try something because I am afraid of the discomforting feeling of embarrassing I get from judging myself.

There have been so many times when I have not danced alone, sung a song when I was completely alone, watched a YouTube tutorial video was watching etc. because I was too self-conscious to admit to myself that I wanted to try or to witness myself struggling to learn.

Once when complaining to a friend about how frequently my best writing ideas, turns of phrase, or poems came to me when I was driving--- where I was unable to easily jot my thoughts down--- my friend suggested making voice memos.  She said this was something that had really helped her.

My immediate reaction was: Yeah, I'll never do that.  Why?  Because I knew I was too much of a coward to listen to my own voice speaking my creative ideas.  Saying them out loud was bad enough, but listening to them back made me want to crawl out of my skin.  I could already hear myself criticizing myself, You sound like an idiot.  How pretentious can you be?  You cannot deliver these words rights, you are totally murdering the poem.  This sounds so stupid--- what on earth makes you think this is a good idea?

When I wrote the words down everything was fine; it looked like a work in progress that I could physically throw away if I decided it was rubbish.  Things could be changed later; I could add in question marks and circles, cross-outs, and arrows to indicate where things were flawed and uncertain.  But on a voice memo it was hard to immediately acknowledge all of that, short of saying, 'well that last line is not quite right' ----but being that this was a vocal equivalent of sticky note, it was actually completely unnecessary to continually say how unfinished the ideas were.

Recently, I got over this.  I realized this fear of sounding pretentious and amateur on a voice memo that only I would listen to was a horribly stupid reason for losing ideas and phrases that came to me in the car.  The cost and benefit did not match up at all.  And it is much safer to hit open the voice memo ap on my phone and then hit record and start talking, than to try to type out the text or search for a pen and scrap of paper in my purse while driving.

Amazingly, nothing terrible has happened.  On the first try, I had a couple pangs of embarrassment.  And then I realized that sounding stupid on the voice memo didn't matter at all.  This wasn't a performance.  It didn't need to be perfect.

Now, I'm not only not-forgetting poem fragments and ideas, but I also growing into a comfort with listening to my own voice say my own words.  By overcoming this fear, I am gaining more than I even expected!