Chase Your Dreams. Take risks and explore them more than you have been.

That’s my thought today. It’s 10:22PM on a Friday. I wrote my blog post about blogging a couple years ago and some of the advice in it included publishing your posts when folks would be around to read it.

That’s alright, though, I’m going to publish it and send one or two tweets and maybe the auto-tweet if it works. I won’t push it, though. If you still stumbled onto this and it makes sense and is helpful, then great. I’ll sum up my thought (which I qualify a bit below) another way – Get out of your comfort zone and see what will happen.

I’m not saying turn selfish, go insane, suspend rational thought, stop interrogating your crazy ideas or be generally foolish. I’m just saying – that idea you had? Yeah that one. Maybe it was a job change way out of your comfort zone. Maybe it was that new friendship, that new business venture, taking that person under your wing, speaking at a SQL event, blogging or something else. That thing that you’ve felt the urge to try but you keep stopping yourself, you keep talking yourself completely out of without further thought? Yeah that one. Are you going to spend the rest of your life thinking about it?

It is pool opening season here in New England. I will always remember being a kid on that ladder. I so badly wanted to jump in. But I did a cost/benefit analysis in my head and I kept putting too much weight on feeling really uncomfortable (I’d never be in mortal or grave danger but pretty uncomfortable) and cold. I thought about all the negative aspects but I never thought about how I’d be used to the water in 5 minutes and my mom would have to practically drag me out. I would count to 3, 5 or 10 many times and then not jump. Every.Single.Time. Maybe I should have added the positive into the ROI calculation – It would be fun! I’d get over the discomfort! And I could have easily mitigated my fear by asking – What’s the worst that could have happened? Realizing I was too cold and couldn’t get used to the water? I’d have just jumped out and dried off and be fine in the late May or early June sun. What’s the big deal with that?!

Here’s the point of this post really –> Sometimes our own fears, rational and irrational, can paralyze us. While gripped with that paralysis we miss out on some of the best that (I say God, you can say fate or even chance here if it makes it easier for you) He has in store for us. While gripped by that self induced fear we miss what He’s wanting us to do, sometimes.

Let’s mitigate that fear really quick –> Ignore that fear for just one second, okay? Let is go hang out in your subconscious if you must. Alright is it gone? Good. Look at the big picture of life, yours actually. Look at what is most important (no… look at what is really most important!) Ok. I picked my faith and my family. I didn’t pick my pay check or even providing food for my family (I trust as long as I am responsible I’ll have that taken care of somehow. I believe the Bible when it reminds me that God provides even for the sparrow so how much more would He look after me?) but instead I picked my family and my faith. Alright so you have what is most important to your life, right? Now ask your self that question I should have asked on the p-p-p-p-pool ladder- Will your dream destroy that? Will your dream go against what is most important? Note.. I didn’t say will your dream cause some bumps, cause some uncertainty. I asked if it will actively harm what is most important to you? No? Well then check your fear. No… I’m not advocating dangerous behavior or justifying doing something dangerous and stupid if that is your dream 😉 I’m just asking you is your fear real? Or is it a block. I argue it may be a block, a doubt. Well shake that loose and think more about your idea, look at it in terms of What is the worst that can happen? And be honest. Is the worst as bad as you’ve been fearing? No?

Well then maybe it’s time to go wrangle that dream.

A point of clarification – As a Christian, I would strongly suggest you pray about this idea, pray about it to see if it is from Him or not, seek His will and explore this dream with that in mind. That means you have to trust God that much more now, maybe whatever that idea you’ve been sitting on is also an opportunity for you to lean on Him like you’ve never done before. For me, if I had what I thought was a great idea but prayer, conviction and scripture told me it was a bad idea, I’d call my dream the problem instead of my fears and hesitation. If you aren’t a Christian and don’t have these tools you can still seek wise counsel, I suppose.

Have a great weekend.