Follow your passion…

“Yeah, but what if it works?”

There are many reasons we can stumble when trying to begin something. Fear of failure is understandable and readily recognized.

But a fear of success is not always so obvious.

Fears Big and Small

Fear can trip us in smallest moments. If we start a thing, we might get into it. But getting into it means that other things might get lost.

What if something else is more important, and I don’t realize it?

If I get into this, I’ll need to stay with it until I’m done. If I don’t, I might create yet another pile, that whispers “you never finish things.”

And then there is the fear of actual success on the larger scale, possibly scarier than failure. If we become the doctor, lawyer, engineer, artist,–whatever we’ve dreamed of–what then?

Expectations, responsibilities, and visibility might follow.

I’ll need to keep it up.

What if others discover that I don’t know what I’m doing?

What if success leads me somewhere I don’t like or can’t sustain?

Throughout we might wonder,

What if it’s all a mistake?

A Podcast and a Dog

As I work on releasing a podcast, I worry not only if it were to fail, but if it were to do well. A good problem to be sure, but a problem nonetheless.

As I visit the project daily, scatter and other struggles play out from some nidus within these fears.

How much time will I need to spend? Will this consume me? Will I enjoy it once I’m there?

In all this worry, and despite how much I write about it, I sometimes forget that I have agency—that I can decide what to do when I arrive at failure, success, or anywhere in between. I even miss the part where there might even be something quite positive.

I’m reminded of a conversation I’d had with a good friend of mine when he encouraged me to get a dog.

I said,

“But I’ll have to take care of it. I’ll have to train and clean up after it, take it to the vet. It will take so much time!”

To which he responded,

“Yeah, but you’ll have a dog.”

I now have a dog. She’s awesome.

Fear–whether of failure or success–can overwhelm us before we begin. It’s useful to pause and consider that we can carry our sense of agency with us at every moment. We don’t have to commit our entire lives to a single project or passion right now.

With any single visit, we can be with that fear, choosing with the time and energy we have in the winds and waters of the session, adjusting as we go. Unfinished projects can become lessons, guideposts, and stepping stones for next directions, so long as we consciously acknowledge them as such, setting them aside as needed with deliberate action.

Any true hope has fear embedded within. Such is growth.

Consider making visits to something you would like to grow within your life and maybe one day you, too, will have a dog. Or a podcast. Or more importantly, the agency to decide what to do in those moments as you arrive.

Agency, after all, is not about controlling every outcome—it’s a practice: to show up, to reflect on the moment, to then decide.

– Kourosh

PS – Consider, is there some passion or interest you are currently visiting daily? If not, could there be one, even if it were only for that single moment of in-person awareness and decision?