A Time to Fly Even When Afraid

What does fear do to you and for you? What have you allowed it to keep from you? When did you stop fighting it and give in to it? 

So many people ask me how I knew it was time for me to leave my job or how I knew entrepreneurship was for me. They ask, “weren’t you afraid?”. My answer is “ABSOLUTELY!!”

Entrepreneurship was not new to me but the idea of opening my own practice was different. Before becoming a therapist, I was a realtor and although I loved sales and the freedom that came along with it, I wanted to do something else where I could impact lives from a different angle. 

After finishing my counseling program and having various jobs within the mental health industry I toyed around with the idea, but literally had it in the same framework as real estate, thinking, no biggie! Boy was I wrong. I had many reasons why I thought having my own practice really wouldn’t fit my lifestyle. I didn’t want to be responsible for people. I didn’t want to be the face of something else and I didn’t want to have to compete for clients. I was trying to force myself to be like everyone else…working at a large company where I could depend on a check, had PTO, a pension coming and a very nice salary. I was good!

Then it happened. I had an urge. Those darn urges! Thinking “here we go again”. That urge to do something more, something that fit my purpose. So, I asked myself, what would it look like to have a practice? I started having more conversations with others that seemed to make it look easy. These conversations were making me nervous because I kept thinking “I don’t want to do all of that”. Here I was thinking that my response to others came out of my past experiences being an independent contractor as a realtor but what really framed my responses was fear. Fear of putting myself out there, fear of failing, fear of being successful, fear of it not being perfect. 

I toiled a long time about this. Let me say that correctly - I let fear keep me from starting my own practice for over a year. I had many sleepless nights, I found myself talking to anyone I could about how to avoid pitfalls so I could make it “perfect”. I feared taking my family into a financial crisis, I feared I would be seen as selfish for letting go of “safeguards” at a large company to “swim with sharks” on my own. Fear had me messed up!

Then I had a conversation with an old friend from high school that I hadn’t seen or talked since we graduated high school. He said “choose. Stop teetering and choose”. As afraid as I was, I chose! The fear of never knowing who I could become weighed much more than the fear of leaving a job that I could likely go back to if I needed. I was scared then of failing and I’m afraid today of failing but I keep getting up every day doing it anyway. I do it knowing life could happen and I will adjust when needed. I learned that I’m capable of standing up to my fears. I love what I do, and I encourage all those that come with fear to stare it in the face and choose themselves. The worst that could happen is you have to adjust but choose you and be bold enough to do it over and over and over again.