The Fear and Exhilaration of Making the Leap
If you are reading Fiona’s web-site, chances are you are considering a change in life, perhaps starting a business of your own. Like a lot of people, I am passionate about houses. I want to do work I love (see Fiona’s book “Be Your Own Life Coach”), so I am starting a business offering advice on home presentation. And I am terrified.
Why do I think I can do this?
I’ve been an avid and systematic reader of interior magazines since I was 20; I’ve studied architecture books so I know a corbel from a cornice and pediment from and pedestal; I have an eye for furniture, colour and texture and have trained myself to see and recall rooms in minute detail; I have a clear spatial imagination and can instantly see the effects of potential changes in my mind; I worked for an estate agent so I could survey what worked and what didn’t in a large number of houses; I have developed concepts around what captures people’s imagination and makes them happy and comfortable in a house, flat, or any other space. I have transformed several houses and have a comprehensive set of before and after photographs to show potential clients..
More than this. I write reports as part of the service, and I have writing experience: two novels, short stories, technical manuals and sales material in a corporate situation. I have a degree in computer science and have built my own web-site, can produce a spreadsheet that will calculate you from here to the moon and design a database which reports on information in infinite ways. I have taught a course in Information for Business Management, so I can produce a business plan, manage income and expenses, analyse trends and assess viability. Easily.
But I am terrified. “What if I fail?” I wonder. But in fact I don’t think this is what I am frightened of: I’m afraid of success, of the huge change it will mean to my life, my relationships and how I relate to the world. “I have planned well, worked hard and I deserve to succeed.” I tell myself. “No, I don’t.” I whisper back. “I am a successful Home Presentation Advisor.” “No, I’m not.”
So where am I now? Poised for the plunge and not taking it.
I think about the great literature of romance which explores the parallel moment, when relationships are almost starting, when there is uncertainty and exhilaration and terror and great happiness mixed into the most powerful cocktail of human emotion. I should be savouring this moment, as in a romance we look back in wonder at the intensity of the beginning.
I think about the first time I went skydiving as a teenager. At what point does a person become a skydiver? Are they a skydiver when they put on their suit, their parachute and get into the plane, or do they only become a skydiver when they make the leap?
All that time they may be thinking “I can’t do it, I won’t be able to jump.” but still they mechanically take the steps leading up to it, because none of those is difficult. One leg in the suit, the other, zip it up. Check the parachute as they have been trained to do. Put it on. Climb into the plane. Look out the window as it takes off. Watch others jump. Feel numb.
Are they a skydiver yet? Yes. They become a skydiver when they make the decision to jump, take the steps to train and prepare themselves mentally. When they take the leap, the fact that is already a fact becomes real to them, and faith in themselves, belief in themselves comes in a rush. This is the reward – not the experience, exhilarating though it is, but the belief in themselves.
Taking the plunge into a new life follows the parallel: for a while you are free-falling, out of control, then the parachute you have prepared opens and you can look around in wonder, hyper-aware, seeing familiar things from a wonderfully new perspective, then, with a small jolt you find yourself on the ground again, back in your comfort zone, but a bigger comfort zone than before – and possibly with an addiction to the exhilaration of that leap of faith in yourself.
Fiona talks about crossing the chasm into a new life, “Acting as if” you have already crossed it, already are the person you will be on the other side. This is wonderful advice, and it’s time for me to take it myself, take the leap that will get me across the chasm. It will help me if I recognise and savour the exhilaration of this moment, and know I will look back on it later as a high point in my life; and it will help me if I realise that my new life does not become real after I have taken the leap: it became real when I decided to take it.
All that awaits me now on the other side is belief in myself.
Jennifer Manson
www.homestyle.co.nz
