If Yes Scares You, It Matters
I’ve noticed something interesting about the biggest decisions in my life.
They usually scared me. Not the obvious “bad idea” kind of scared. The meaningful kind. The kind that makes your stomach flutter. The kind that keeps showing up in your thoughts. The kind that whispers:
“What if this changes everything?”
When I jumped out of an airplane for the first time, I was scared.
When I went white-water rafting despite barely being able to swim, I was scared.
When I left for two years of travel after burnout, I was scared.
When I decided to write and perform a Fringe show at 57 years old, I was definitely scared.
Fear has a funny way of appearing whenever something truly matters. Not because we’re making the wrong choice. But because we’re standing at the edge of growth.
The things that don’t matter rarely scare us.
We don’t lose sleep over decisions that have no meaning. We don’t hesitate before taking paths that leave us unchanged. The hesitation often comes when we sense that something important is waiting on the other side.
A new relationship.
A new career.
A new adventure.
A new version of ourselves.
The challenge is that fear and excitement often feel remarkably similar.
A racing heart.
Butterflies.
Uncertainty.
Possibility.
Sometimes what we’re calling fear is actually our soul recognizing that we’re about to step into unfamiliar territory. And unfamiliar territory is where growth lives.
That doesn’t mean every scary thing is worth doing. But it does mean we shouldn’t automatically treat fear as a stop sign.
Sometimes fear is simply an invitation. An invitation to pay attention. o look closer. To ask ourselves why this opportunity feels so significant.
Bubbles teach me that too. The biggest bubbles require a little courage. You have to open the wand. Trust the conditions. Let go.
And allow something beautiful to emerge.
It may burst.
It may drift away.
It may become something magical.
You’ll never know if you never open the wand.
So these days, when a decision scares me, I try asking a different question.
Not: “What if it goes wrong?”
But: “What if it matters?”
Because sometimes the opportunities that scare us most are the ones that have the greatest potential to change our lives.