On February 16, 2021, I decided to try do one scary (exciting!) thing a day. Not a scary-yucky thing, but something I’d really like to do if I had enough courage or if I suddenly couldn’t feel fear. 

I decided to pretend I had enough courage and think about what I would do if I really didn’t feel any fear. 

Most of the scary-exciting things I chose to do were tiny things, really. Here are some examples:

• Ask my husband—out loud—to clean the trap (You know, that thing that collects all the junk so it doesn’t go down the drain?) of the kitchen sink after he uses it. 
• Join a CrossFit gym. 
• Keep going to the gym even though everyone around me seems to be an athlete and I can’t even do a full pushup. 
• Ask for a discount at a store on a jacket I like but which has a stain on it. 
• Respond to a snarky text message after taking a deep breath and asking myself what the most generous interpretation of the text is and responding to that rather than ignoring the text. 
• Apply to be a teacher in a series of Zentangle Masterclasses. 
• Express my preference rather than say, “whatever you want.” (There are many iterations of this—from what to watch on TV to where to hike to where to get take-out. In many instances, expressing my preference is not a scary thing to do, but then again, in many instances, it really does feel scary.)

When I think of a scary-exciting thing to do, I tend to have a similar thought process:

1. Something occurs to  me. “Ooh, I’d like to do X!”
2. Immediately feel fear—sometimes it’s a sense of unease or anxiety, sometimes it’s actual words in my mind: “I can’t do that!” or “”Who do you think you are, thinking you can do that?” or “What will people think?” or “He/she/they won’t like that.” 
3. Take deep breaths and try to figure out the reason whatever I want to do feels scary. 
4. Ask myself what is the worst that could happen?

One scary-exciting thing I did was to apply to teach a Zentangle class after taking the Masterclasses as a student. Here’s how the process went:

1. See email asking for applications to be teachers at CZT:AE 2021 Autumn and think, “Ooh, that would be so fun to be one of the instructors!”
2. Feel anxiety. Hear the brain chatter: “You can’t do that! You’ve only been a student at CZT:AE, you can’t be an instructor!” “The instructors are real artists, you’re not!” “Who do you think you are?”
3. My mind (lizard brain)  is telling me I’m overstepping, getting ahead of myself. After all, I’ve only been a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) for three years. 
4. The worst that could happen is that I don’t get accepted to teach one of the Masterclasses. 

Knowing that, I decided to apply. I had a class I’d taught to my students that everyone seemed to like, so I submitted my application. My class was accepted and I am one of the teachers of CZT:AE 2021 Autumn, which launched this past week.

The biggest—and best—lesson I’ve learned from doing one scary-exciting thing a day is this: not everything I do is going to work out, but I am okay either way. I can handle the failures, every single one, and not trying is a guaranteed failure. 

I’m learning to give myself a chance, every day.