KEEP TRYING
I read an article about Renee Zellweger, the actress, in a Sunday supplement. She apparently had a wonderful upbringing, with her parents emphasizing the virtues of self-reliance, hard work and optimism. Her parents taught her that she could do anything she wanted to do. The confidence her parents instilled in her enabled her to make it as an actress, in the face of difficulties and setbacks. Zellweger was quoted as saying she only fears personal failure: making bad choices, letting people down.
Reading about Zellweger reminded me how much fear limits us, narrows our choices, makes us give up. Fear of failure and the embarrassment we think it brings with it keeps us from doing our best, from trying new things, from achieving our goals. Our fears slow us down, trap us, imprison us, ultimately paralyze us. All of us share these fears, all of us fear failure at some time or another, all of us must overcome fear if we are to succeed at whatever we value doing.
We're not all as lucky as Zellweger in having parents who avoided instilling fears in us. Most of our parents teach us fear in a well-meaning effort to teach us to avoid risk. But, unfortunately, if we don't take risk, we get nothing done. If we don't try things, we won't achieve our potential, we won't do our best. Risk is part of growing, part of advancing our lives, part of success. Without risk, we stultify, we run in place, we get nowhere. The willingness to try new things, the willingness to accept embarrassment if our first efforts don't work, are essential to doing what we want to do.
Fear is good in certain circumstances. It helps us to avoid pitfalls, to step around traps, to speed our march to our goals. But when fear keeps us from moving forward, slows our progress, makes the path to success too rocky to try it, fear is completely dysfunctional.
Whatever happens in life, we have to keep trying. The sure path to failure is to give up. Avoid unhealthy fears, believe in yourself, and never give up. You will succeed if you can keep going and march steadily toward your goal. Setbacks will come but they won't stop you unless you let them.
7-2-01
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