Mountains and Molehills

The crushing weight of anxiety placed firmly on our chests, we face new challenges — or avoid them at all costs — with a pending sense of impossibility. We know we have done something similar before this moment, and yet we cannot help but feel we are trudging up another mountain. And somehow we think that this time we won’t be able to master it.

Before every talk I give, every article I write, every call I make, I see that mountain off in the distance. The vice of fear curls its fingers around my head and I wonder if I may have lost my touch in the seconds it took between agreeing to the assignment and actually doing it.

Then, despite the mild paralysis, I step over it and onto the stage, tackle the keyboard and pick up the receiver to do it anyway.

I am not alone in this feeling. My expertly skilled friend feels the same. Before every job, he gets the tingle of performance anxiety. And yet he is a master of his craft. A true artist that moves me – heart and soul.

And so it is – we see molehills and think they are mountains. Before we know it, we are in the midst of that very thing we feared. Only we have forgotten to feel bad because we feel so good doing what we do best.

Stevie Nicks, the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, once said. “If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?”

I think so. A little bit of fear mixed in with the passion that pushes us through it to the other side is what keeps us moving forward. And makes us so excellent.

Expand that comfort zone. Never give up. Stretch beyond what you think is possible.

Because anything is possible.

Anything.

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