Yet another fear facing Sunday!

Routine #1 – Daily fear facing:

 – Ops, I did it again

Went for another gymnastic dance group thingy at my gym. The same as last Sunday. Just as then, I tried to come up with logic and convincing enough stories for not doing it. In the end, I won and decided to join 5 minutes before it started. Again, the main argument was that it wasn’t a tough enough workout for me.

I really enjoyed it, and I managed to stay much more relaxed and not care what others thought of my sometimes crazily uncoordinated moves. For sure was one of my top moments of the day. Just Being immersed in myself and the movements during the dance/gymnastics class

 

Routine #2 – New thing:

 – Team Work

Did a joint edit together with my friend for a project, interesting, fun and effective!

 

Not much writing today, been editing for 15 hours! Finally ready, and ready for bed 🙂

See you tomorrow:)

/Alex

Fear Facing Mini Adventure Saturday!

Routine #1 – Daily fear facing:

 – Went out and asked some people if they wanted to dance with me.

 Haha… I LOOVE when I can’t help but to start this blog with a feeling of just PURE joy because of my fear facing activities. I’m more and more certain that I’m on to something good with my daily fear facing routine.

Some weeks ago, I spoke about trying to have myself a weekly mini adventure to make me experience more! I defined it to focus on the experience, not the time or scale of it. It should entail at least 3 out of these 4:

– New people, or people you haven’t seen in a while

– Excitement

– New Environments

– Fear Facing

Looking back at it now, I’m realizing I should revise it as you – in my book at least – can’t have excitement without some kind of fear present. Hence I’m revising!

And today I had myself a little fear facing adventure. Now I won’t go into the details of what went down, you’ll just have to watch tomorrow’s video to find out. But the short story is that I sat out on a quest to find someone that could teach me how to dance! And boy was it an adventure!

Since the three hour that has passed since it ended, I’ve been walking on clouds. Smiling, singing out loud and just genuinely happy. Even had a spontaneous super nice moment with the cashier at the grocery store, couldn’t help but to engaging in a fun conversation with her. And I know it was a mutual experience as she gave me a discount without me even asking for it! Like I just can’t but to scream out loud

“I LOVE LIFE”

My point is, go out there and face some fears. You might just end up as happy as me. Haha… I love when I can refer to myself as some kind of measure stick;).

 

– Routine #2 – New thing:

 – Picture Picture

Took some photographs. Usually I only do video, but lately, I’ve been more curious at taking photos too. Being a car lover and all, I couldn’t help myself when walked past this beauty. It was a new really nice experience, and I know feel hungry for more every time I’m looking at my new wallpaper.

 …Also, the whole going out and trying to dance publicly for sure was something I hadn’t done before.

What fears have you been facing today?

🙂

See you tomorrow, fear facer,

/Alex

Yet another Fear Facing Friday!

Now I don’t share what in this little blog in some narcists way to get seen and heard. What I write here I usually keep to myself. I do my daily journaling and reflection even if I don’t always share it with you guys. Perhaps a bit more thought goes into making sure it sounds good here, but the core of it still the same. I’ve been doing so for years. Because it gives me so much in return. I’m my own shrink. But just as important, net to my journaling ( I write everything in Onenote) I also keep track of my actions. My routines. Facing fears, trying new things, workouts, meditation etc. All that helps me be my very best, daily. At least helps a whole lot.

I share all this when I’m stupid enough to challenge myself to take on an intense blog period, because I believe it can serve you too. That’s it, that’s all.

Damn, I’m tired. Been a real hustle of a day. Still,  I’ve managed to stay true to the newfound deeply grounded great mood (check out the video further down). And I’ll know it’ll be there when I wake up tomorrow too. Now, some very short presentation of today’s fears.

                                                     Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

  • Did a live stream this morning, and then also posted it in the facebook group comfort zone hackers.
  • Dared to sit my as down and do nothing but finish my essay I had to write. Managed to finish it just in time.
  • Allowed me to just be and think without directly going into work mood in the morning. It’s a big thing for me to let go of that control.

Routine #2 – New thing:

  • Tried a new thing in my Live stream:

Now I’m going to sleep sooo soo well!!

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex

Yet another Fear Facing Thursday!

 – You know it’s going to be a great day when you randomly, without even a second of hesitation or reflection, stop the smiling woman walking towards you and tell her to keep glowing and spreading that joy!

05,30 – Ahh, just woke up and I’m so excited for the day! Not only did I have all these great dreams. Met with old friends, talked to some girls, drove around in some crazy buss like a big field trip – A real adventure! Love it. The excitement in my parallel life. And the best of all is that it sets the mood for the rest of the day.

That’s also why the bad dreams tend to set the mood for the rest of the day. Or well, you start in an uphill! It’s even worse when you don’t remember that bad shit that went down so you can’t rationalize yourself out of it. You’re just left with a feeling of something being horribly wrong! That’s when gratefulness, positive self-talk, journaling, workout, good music, cold showers, meditation or some motivational videos really play a huge importance! Luckily that wasn’t today? …Although I still did all those things!

The second reason for why this is an amazing day is thanks to my mindset change of last night. As I wrote about in yesterday’s blog­, it’s been so much lately with all my different projects overwhelming me. Where my daily 5 minutes minimum of meditation being the only time free from all the musts.

But I woke up yesterday. The ignition point being the video I linked yesterday. And a build up towards a feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with my state of being. The video itself wasn’t that special or something I haven’t heard before, but it unlocked my previous way of thinking. To not take life to serious, to make got damn sure to enjoy it. To take action and do the very best I can. Not overanalyse or think too much. Just do it! And do it for my sake in first hand. If I’m not happy, I can’t help others to be either.

The video for sure didn’t say all that, but I did. I don’t know how, but somehow, I just managed to shake all the downer emotions off. Because the feeling within today is just… And I know It will stick!

Enough said, let’s get into some small daily fear facing action. As I’ve said so many times before, it’s not about the big things, it’s about implementing a behaviour and mindset always close at hand. By doing small things daily, you’ll have the momentum to do bigger things once the opportunity pops up! And I say this by experience.

 – The treadmill push

Such a push at the treadmill. I was just going to have an easy jog while working through some thoughts of mine for a career goal meeting that was scheduled for later. But I started to pull in that little string that I felt lurking around in the back of my head.

“You’re on a treadmill Alex. You have the potential to make this a great exercise, pushing yourself. Proving to yourself that you’re the kind of person that does the hard thing. Because you know greatness lays on the other side of that wall. “

I try to generalize all nuances of fears to just being “a fear”. Then It’s simple – I have to do it if it aligns with my goals or values. Knowing a tough and painful workout awaits is scary as shit. To dare to enter that uncomfortable state of mind. To endure those physical pains. I’d say it’s probably one of the biggest reasons for why in 9 out 10 cases do all my training in the morning. That means I don’t have to walk around thinking about what lays ahead.  Can just rip the bandage straight off. As I’ve said before, meet your fears as soon as you can, and you are more likely to follow through.

Speaking of letting myself down, one of the other big reasons for me fearing a tough workout is that I might quit on myself. Leaving myself disappointed. And If I don’t try, I can’t disappoint myself. So, the easy fix is to not. But that’s just a bad excuse. FACING THE FEAR IS THE CHALLENGE THE BIG CHALLENGE, the outcome is secondary.

Anyways – the identified fear was out there. Make a killer workout out of this. Now I’m not saying all workout should be this way, but I knew I had it in my today! So, I sat the speed at 13 km/h and then I just ran and ran and kept slowly increasing it. I maxed out my pulse at 187 towards the last two minutes at 16 km/h. It was an amazing intense 5+ km run that just kicked the day of in a wonderful way. Only thanks to being aware enough to identify that fear, and then daring to challenge myself.

 – The fear

Then after a easier downtempo jog, I left the gym. Just as I exited a smiling woman was walking in my direction. I could see her smile 10 meters away. It just made me even more happy, and without a blink of an eye I stopped her and said:

“Excuse me, but I just love the way you smile. It makes me and so many else so happy. Promise me you’ll keep doing that, and I’ll love you for it!”

She smiled even more and promised to continue spreading the joy.

– The office mingle party

I think It was Monday I wrote about how I signed up to this office mingle party, but dreaded for it. Historically social gathering used to be very tough on me. Social anxiety. Social hangover – self-critical and judgemental thoughts. This time perhaps more about the fear of losing my valuable evening time. But there never was any anxiety or fear present to day. Not Building up to the thing or during it. I just had a great time, mingled and talked to new people and had some great food. Just a very nice evening. So hear it was only fear of fear that never happened. What a waste!

As the clock closes in to 22, I’m even more certain than ever that coming period will be a great one. The mood for sure persisted. Everything just felt right. It’s rather effortless to speak my mind and be myself. I felt so at home at the office. Not like an outcast that accidently ended up behind this desk. The fraud waiting to get caught. No, I felt like I belonged in a way I hadn’t before in this context. And I loved it.

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex

Yet another Fear Facing Wednesday!

Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

– Letting fun easy going Alex out

Yesterday was kind of a rough day. So many things to do and no idea how to make it all happen in time. It got to me. To my mood and to my social interactions. Today that’s not going to happen. And I started out breaking yesterday’s role by coming into the office and being my genuine happy self.

Speaking up, being energetic, interacting and engaging with people in an easy going way that brings joy and laughter. That’s me when I’m myself and not held back by myself. But often I sink in and let both internal and external shit impact me. Like now with the heavy the workload. It could also be that I’ve just slept bad, and it makes me lose all my energy. And I get stuck in that role. Breaking out of it is both hard and scary. This also relates to being a certain kind of person with certain people, it’s hard to shift that once you’re there.

But today I decided to be that person! And it felt really good, especially in the morning when I had my energy levels up. Then I fell apart some.  But ended it really good as I’ve just sold a couple of things and had some great interactions with some lovely people here! More to it – there’s a new opportunity to be my best self tomorrow?.

– Shared my interests

Had lunch with a new guy. Started talking about interests, and we got to my passion for editing and video making. I didn’t mention the YouTube channel at first, it’s always a tough topic for me to address. I don’t know what it is. Or well, I guess it’s because I’m afraid of what people – COLLEAGUES – would think of a 30-year-old man running around facing fears with a camera. BUT I know that’s just horse shit. That’s not how I intend to live my life. Fear identified – fear faced. I spoke up and it Felt good.

– Giving a stranger a compliment

On my way home, a lady walked past me with a nice hat! So after having identified the fear of interacting with her and saying that – I did so. I love giving genuine compliments. People always get so happy. My boss had this super nice sweater yesterday, which I told him. Not in any way because I’m a suck up, but because I honestly thought so. And he got so happy for me saying so.

Don’t ever hold back on expressing your positive thoughts and emotions.  Or well, I’m sure there are some moments… ?

Routine #2 – Doing  a new thing:

 I always have a 4- minute mini meditation before my evening dinner. Tried having it afterwards this time instead. Was really nice, and it punctuated the meal. Usually, I tend to never stop eating once I’ve started in the evening and now I did. Sweet!

See you tomorrow, Fear facer

/Alex

P.S. Video of the day that I really needed. Love the feeling it left me with. 5,4,3,2,1.. LOVE LIFE!

 

Yet another Fear Facing Tuesday!

Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

–  Working on the Presentation

Okay, so this isn’t a new fear. But a recurrent one. As I’ve mentioned earlier, our company is having a big conference in Croatia in 2,5 weeks. And I’ve been asked to do a presentation. It’s been a while since I did any public speaking like this. I Guess in the university like 2,5 years ago was the last time.

Last week I wrote about the fear of sitting down and working with this. But after pushing through and really throwing myself into it intensively for two days, I started feeling good about it. Then I let it go as I had other more urgent work to focus on . That was until today when I got reminded of it.

Having a second look at your work after having distancing yourself from it is really good. But it’s also awful. My new pair of eyes checked me in with reality. I have so much work left. So yet again I had to really force myself to work on it. It’s just so tough on you when you are overthrown by the feeling of overwhelmingness. So much to do. Where to start… Then you just want to – try to – flee instead.

I mean there’s literally nothing new here in comparison to what I wrote last week. The far is the same, and it’s big. And I will come to the same solution and conclusion as I did then. Break it down, focus on one thing at the time and ground yourself with your why. Stay aware and present so you know that you’re doing the right thing. Reason and talk to yourself, either out loud or in writing. Look at the positive outcome of what you’re trying to accomplish and remind yourself of why.

Non-juicy extracts from the inside of Alex Mind in an anxiety-filled moment:

App app, Alex – don’t you dare answer that text message now or check that email. Nothing critical is going to happen within the 25 minutes of working time you’ve got left before the break. Take a deep breath, put down the phone, and go back to work.

The Seminar really intimidates and scare me so much right now. The pressure of doing a really good one. Having the moment to impact… Argh! Be sound Alex. Make it basic without trying to complicate things. That’s when you’ll do it well. Talk about your experiences. You have a ton of it. Make it memorable and focus on the main message. Face Your Fears. Instead of trying to come up with this one holy framework that will solve everybody’s problems. That has been done, and it hasn’t worked. Inspire to action – it’s as simple as that. Story tell and connect. And I know this won’t come without a struggle, but that’s the thing – I’m willing to take on this struggle.

One big key factor to growth is repetition. Having the patience to work with one thing over and over without giving up on it. Find what works for you, and then keep doing and perfecting that.

After years of personal development, I’ve realised that even if you find something that is quite suboptimal – that will more likely give better results then trying new things all the time. Because then you don’t give it the required time to evaluate how good it actually was for you. And you’ll most likely even give up on the stuff that really is the shit. Meditation is a perfect example of when this easily happens. Trust the process.

 Identified fears:

As I walked home today I realised I hadn’t been saying high or talking to strangers the way I used to. Been so much with my new work role that I’ve just been using it as a empty my mind walk home. BUT, it just went up on the fear list. So tomorrow I’ve decided to interact with at least one person.

 

Routine #2 – Doing a New thing:

Nothing exciting today, on the contrary – relaxing! Listened to an hour of Pan flute music.

To be truthful, when I started writing I hadn’t done anything. Realizing this made me ask myself what new thing I could do. “what new thing can you do today alex?” And listening to a new kind of music is always an easy way out. However, easy doesn’t necessary mean bad. As I’ve almost been listening for an hour know it was super nice – relaxing in a refreshing way. Made it one of the top moments of the day. S

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex

Yet another Fear Facing Monday!

 

Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

Office Fears

Just got home from a super intense 12-hour workday. Fun, exciting, and full of small fear facing moments. Here’s the three that impacted me the most.

  1. I had meeting with one of my bosses concerning different possibilities for me moving forward. One of the alternatives are making me a bit hesitant, and to be frank, scares the crap out of me. I’m afraid it’s going to jeopardize the ability for me to handle my new part-time marketing role.

I had felt an urge to express these emotions, and I knew my body language already were at times. It would put me in a vulnerable and unconformable position, and I wouldn’t want to come off as a complainer. I just wanted to come clean with my worries. More to it, my fear facing muscle needed closure as It was something I had identified as a fear of mine a couple of days ago.

So I said all that. Now, I’m not sure whether that was the smartest move or not. But it felt damn good, and it really made me feel like I was true to myself. I’m the kind of person that express my concerns and opinions, that’s a value I hold high and want to live by. Self-esteem boosted.

2. I accepted an after-work office mingle event with food and activities this Thursday. These things are so hard for me to attend. SO HARD. I feel that I have so much other stuff to do that is much more important. However, getting to know your colleagues, having fun together and eat some good food should be prioritized.

Frankly, this is actually one of my biggest fears in life. To not constantly be productive and do things that move me forward. Like creating a video or working on some project. The thing is, building strong social connections is one of the most effective ways of doing this. New opportunities most often come through engagement with other people. By sharing your ideas, intentionally or unintentionally. Which is something I need to remind myself of more often.

I still feel bad about doing this on Thursday, and my mind will try hard to come up with all kinds of excuses to get me out of it. It has already done a good job of that. But I’m determined to make this event the fear facing action of the day Thursday. Please check up on me ?.

2. Needed some information from a person. Safe route – email my questions. The identified fear route – call and practice some rapport building. Went for the fear inducing one. So glad for that! Ending up having a 40-minute conversation with loads of laughter. That’s in-between all the good information I got out in a way that never would had been able in an efficient wat through emailing.

 

Routine #2 – Doing new things:

 

– No refills

Today it was more about what I DIDN’T do. You see, I have a special relationship to food. It’s what you would call a love-hate one. Anyways, one of my other bosses took me out for a lunch meeting. It was a bufee. Now we’re really talking love-hate relationship. I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of one not being completely stuffed. With food and anxiety. Today I didn’t. I just took one normally sized plate. And no refills. One-year-ago-Alex would have fainted if he heard this.

Walking out of there I felt so got damn proud. And it has grown on me throughout the day. Now the deeper reasons for why this had such an impact is a story for another day. But the way it happened is what impresses me here. Mostly I did it to get my “try-something-new” checkbox checked so I could let it go for today. It just proves how much these things do. When things aren’t  “I should”, but “I must”. Then we make sure to do it, and the results keeps coming. Without that much of an effort – That’s the power of routines.

🙂

Before leaving you for today, I just confirm that I did do the homemade hummus yesterday. AND IT WAS FREAKING AMAZING. Soo good. You see? Another great thing that came out of me forcing myself to trying something new.

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex

Just a regular Fear Facing Sunday!

Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

– The Ask

It’s early Sunday morning. Today I’m going to meet up with the girl I approached at the gym yesterday. That’s for sure today’s big fear facing action! However, I just warmed up as I texted her. I had two suggestions for what we could do today. First – go for a nice stroll on Kungsholmen, passing through a little flea market I knew off. Could always open for interesting conversations! Plus, it’s nice weather outside.

The second one was gutsier. There’s a boxing workout session at 13.00. I’d always wanted to try it out, but the excuse that I’d want someone to do it with me has held me back. But, for a first meeting that might be a bit… Don’t know, but I identified it as a fear, so that meant I had to ask. We’ll see what she says!

Quick reply –  It’s the stroll just after lunch. That means I ‘ve got time for a workout. Let’s make it a fear facing one?

– The workout.

If you saw my video last Sunday I shared my love-hate relationship with dancing. When I’m immersed in it and are one with the beat – it’s one of the greatest experiences. But when my head is running the show, it’s a different story. But I’ve decided to bring more moving and dancing into my life, owe it to myself. I’m going to trust the process of being uncomfortable a whole lot before getting to a state were the moments of joy are more than the painful ones.

So, in the spirit of this, I decided to check if there were any dancing group classes. I looked at the Friskis & Svettis group schemes and they had a “medium gymnastics”-thingy at 09.00. But the guy having this one mostly do dancing routines throughout the 50-minute session. Fear identified. Or I should say Fears.

When it comes to training, there’s always an alternative cost for me. I can always do the strength lifting. Which I love but is very comfortable in terms of “I know what I get”. So, I’m giving that up for a training session which might be “lighter”. I have this idea of training having to be really hard. At least this is the story my mind keeps trying to make me buy into for not trying new workouts. I didn’t buy it today. I signed up 5 minutes before it got started.

When I entered the training room I could see about 50-60 people in there. 95% ladies. 5% guys, all over 45. Another story my mind tries to tell me, is how these group sessions are uncool and unmanly. I know this isn’t the case. To me being “a real man” is about being myself and daring to express that. Daring to be vulnerable.

I want to dance, hence I’m going to do it. HOWEVER, it doesn’t stop my mind from bombarding me with these shitty thoughts in a last effort to get out of it. I’m in, and I’m staying. Period. You need your awareness and sound thinking to call your bluffs and don’t let them impact your decisions. Awareness – practice it through journaling, meditation or doing this!

It was a great workout. Had moments of pure joy when I was one with the beat of the music and the movements of the body. The feeling of unity and belonging to a group of people moving synchronized and sharing sweat and laughter – that’s powerful.

But mostly I’m proud over how I effectively deflected the negative self-judging thoughts throughout the session. And of course, for facing my fears and going down there and doing it. More of this to come!

– The walk and talk

I felt good about meeting up with her. Nice workout, nice mood, nice weather, and why not top this day off with hanging out with a nice girl! Not really that nervous either since I’d felt we connected well.

But still, some fears present. Some emotions flying around inside of me. I mean, I don’t do these things every week. The good thing about having too many things going on in your life is that you don’t always have time to overthink and get worrisome. Time really can be your greatest enemy,  or the lack of it your best.

I was one minute late when I came around the corner where I’d expected here to be.  Yepp. There she was. Her hair let out and a red Fjällräven backpack lighting up her presence. She was looking into the window of the ÖoB store, dangling with her arms. Looked like she was a bit restless. Good setup for a walk n’ talk! She turned around and saw me, big smile. I smiled back. Right there and then I knew we were going to have a good time.

Routine #2 Doing new things:

– Hummus clean up

I have to come clean. Yesterday I wrote the whole thing about me doing my own homemade Hummus, before actually doing it! I’d know I do it If I wrote it. It’s like visualization practices, but even more powerful. However, I totally forgot about it! So instead, that’s what’s going down in my kitchen today.

…it’s late evening now and I still haven’t done it. Damn. Well, guess I know what I’m doing after posting on this one!

Almost every Sunday for more then 2,5 years I’ve been posting a video, no exception today:

 

 

What Fear facing moments & New things are happening in your life today??

See you tomorrow,

/Alex

Just a regular Fear Facing Saturday!

 

 Routine #1 – The daily fear facing:

– Walked up and looked fear in her eyes

Haha… I feel great! This is the power of momentum. There’s no way I would have done what I just did if I hadn’t gone out talking to people yesterday. No way. You see I have some previous BAD experience of approaching people, well girls, at the gym. So, I stopped doing that after 1-2 tries like 2 years ago. The last one ended with quite the rejection and an emotional scar, so I decided I wouldn’t interpret in the holy context of the workout anymore!

ANYWAYS, I was in the middle of my strength workout routine (real pushy leg workout which was a long fear facing moment in itself) when I saw this very nice-looking girl that smiled in this amazing way. When someone smile and put out good vibes like that – I can’t help myself. I have to look.

I felt a bit creepy looking over once and then. But got damn, couldn’t help myself. That smile!

The thing is that she was in a group workout, dancing and jumping around. A big glass wall in between me and her. I imagined that we had eye contact a couple of times. Time passed, and they did their thing while I did mine.

I was quite sure I wasn’t going to do anything about it. Having my rule in mind. But then their music stopped. My heart started to beat faster, as my body had somehow all along had this plan to go do it. Had my subconscious started to work favourably for me? The part that usually holds me back with all its shitty stories and cover-ups to not do what I should? When I think about, I still had thoughts telling me not to, but it was like the fear facing implemented routine took over.

She came out of the door. I felt myself letting go of my weights even though I was in the middle of a set. I wasn’t running the show, it just happened. I was somehow, without questioning my action, walking with determined steps towards her.

“Hi there. I just have to excuse myself for keep looking over at you like that. Couldn’t help myself!”

She smiled and said something I can’t recall. I asked for her name and shook her hand. She had a familiar accent. She wasn’t’ from around. Originally at least.

“Anyways, what were you up to in there? You did all kinds of wired stuff, and you kept laughing and smiling!”

Paraphrasing here. It’s a bit blurry. Even though I wasn’t that particularly scared to be truthful.

She instantly smiled up and started talking. Sending me all good vibes. We chatted some and I asked what her deal was being here in Stockholm and all. Turned out she moved here like a month ago. New in town – perfect opportunity to get to know strangers. The strangers being me!

To make a short  3-minute story even shorter – I asked if she wanted to hang out tomorrow. She said yes, and now that’s the plan!

The whole thing made me feel not only really good about meeting her, but the self-esteem boost – damn. And the proof of concept from pushing on with this daily fear facing routine. So proud.

                          What a great start of this day and I haven’t even had breakfast yet!

Routine #2 – Do a new thing every day:

– Cooking Win

Made my own hummus. Yummy! I’m experimenting some with cooking more vegan food. Well I have for some time. Still eat the meat though, although I’m not allowing myself to buy any when I’m in the grocery store, but in all other contexts it’s alright. I got a hunting dad for instance, so I can fill the freezer up with his prays occasionally. The whole thing has forced me to learn how to cook with a range of new foods. Forcing me to try new things – love it!

    What fears are you facing today?

 

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex

Just a regular Fear Facing Friday!

On today’s fear facing action list:

– Scary movie!

Ahh first of I just have to say, what an afternoon and an evening! All thanks to some fear facing I decided to put myself up to. Just came back from watching BlackKklansman. Decided to buy two tickets and go out there and ask a stranger to join me! How it went? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see for your self in the Sunday video I’ll release!

– Dare to show unfinished material

It’s a free eBook called 5 steps to Finding your workflow which I recently read. In one of its sections, the author Nathan Lozeron talks about the implications of being a perfectionist and how it’s rooted in fear. How the fear of other people’s judgement makes us strive for perfection. He goes on making the case how this behaviour is a time waster and that we should get feedback when we’re only 20% into a project. At this stage there’s usually enough to make an early judgement if it’s heading in the right direction or not.

“Perfection is flawlessness. Excellence is the constant improvement of flaws.”

– Nathan Lozeron

So here follows a learning of mine in the context of what I’ve just mentioned. This was last night.

It’s 21:05 and I’m standing, or sitting, in the fear right now. I just sent a very early draft of a video I’ve done for a friend. But in a business context. Really tough for me to do this, as the perfectionist I am.

I am sitting here waiting for the feedback right now. I sent it like 7-8 minutes ago. It’s only 2 minutes long, so he should be done watching it by now. Wait. I can see how he is writing in facebook messenger, the “…” bar is lightning up. Oh, it disappeared, that means he deleted what he first wrote. This can’t be good.

Feedback. Total shit. And I get it. It was a very early draft, more to show the flow and choice of music. But I really got the white balance way off. Which I’ve known all along since I first opened the material up after the shot. But I had started to ignore this, or not dealt with it. After all, it’s been almost three weeks since I filmed it. Told myself I figure out a way to colour correct it later. This is emotionally very tough for me. I feel ashamed. Physically hurts within.

He called. We talked it out it. Feel better about it now. A lot of hours in the garbage bin in terms of output. Unless I learn some bad as colour correction skills. However, In learnings – totally different story. I’ve learnt not only the technical implications of using my camera, but the biggest learning is that I need to get comfortable with sharing and taking in feedback early in the process.

I’ve been working (very slowly though) with this edit for 3 weeks. If I would have just dared to show some of the footage straight away, that would have saved hours and hours of time. And equally much anxiety. This really is a big learning. BIG LEARNING.

Making mistakes should hurt. That’s when we really learn from them. At least if we’re mentally mature enough to process it in an objective way. Otherwise, we run the risk of creating emotional scars that hinder us from going at it again. What a shitty thing to say – when is that the case? Hard to tell, but when you have grown your self-esteem enough – you can deal with most shit!

My processing went like this; I haven’t done any real big mistakes in quite some time. That means I’ve been playing it too safe. This is a nice little reference point to look back at. My life didn’t end, even though my mind made it feel like that for a second. It grew. Because I choose too. Because I’ve imprinted so many times in my mind that through facing my fears, through failing a lot, that’s when the growth happens.

However, the two are completely separated things. Fears and output that is. I focus on the process of dealing with the fear of doing something and try to let the output of it get less attention. The latter is not important in the context of building the fear facing muscle. That’s a universal skill we apply in all life areas. I threw myself into this project knowing it most likely could go horribly wrong, because it was out of my skill range. So, in terms of facing my fears, I did great. I identified the fear and went for it even though it scared the crap out of me.

In terms of the video making, I did poorly if you look at the output. But even here I did well if we focus on the learning process of developing a certain skill. In this case – video making. I’ve had to research and learn what went wrong and now have a deeper understanding of it. If I just by luck had managed to get a good output, then the learning from what went wrong wouldn’t have been the same. And today I will go all nerdy on colour correction, maybe it can be saved!

Life is what you make of it, you decide how to interpret what has happened. You decide how to react and how to move forward from here. What good does blame or shaming do but to use up energy you could spend in actions moving forward. As Nathaniel Branden says in the six pillars of self-esteem:

“I am responsible for my choices and actions. To be ‘responsible’ in this context means responsible not as the recipient of moral blame or guilt, but responsible as the chief causal agent in my life and behavior.”

So this one got a bit lengthy, and probably a bit confusing. Might revise it tomorrow, too late for that now!

– Live stream

And yeah, if you want to have a look at another one of my fears I faced today – check out the Friday live stream I did!

See you tomorrow, Fear facer,

/Alex