My little brother is my hero.
He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known (or even known of). He’s achieved greatness that’s difficult to describe, all while overcoming obstacles that would have dismantled most people.
He has a quote that I absolutely love: “The biggest part of confidence is having done the thing before.”
He follows this sentiment up with a willingness to tackle unique problems and try new things that might appear as reckless abandon to someone from the outside. When you know him, you realize it’s not reckless at all.
He has simply accepted what most of us are afraid of when it comes to the first time doing anything: He’s probably going to make a mistake, break something, fall, have to try again, etc. Having accepted this, he can jump headfirst into the deep end and go for it.
He doesn’t set out to fail, mind you. He still does the work and puts forth the effort. However, having accepted the realities that accompany being new at something, he becomes impervious to the most fantastic ailment most of us face in those instances: self-doubt.
He has no expectation of perfection or even success. There’s nothing to doubt. His goal is to have already done the thing once. Afterward, he has the confidence to make further attempts.
He can begin measuring his success from there, improving with each iteration.
There’s a great quote from the movie Three Kings.
Clooney says, “The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.”
We’re all waiting for the courage to try something before we start when it only comes after.
So much of what holds us back in any realm of life is the expectations we place on ourselves; it’s our obsession with the outcome.
Detaching ourselves from the outcome, truly looking at it as absolutely irrelevant, becomes akin to a superpower.
Nothing can hurt us.
So, my questions for you today are:
What would you try if you weren’t concerned with the outcome?
Is there something you’ve been putting off or not doing because you’re afraid you won’t be able to do it?
How would your life change if you allowed yourself to try and, maybe, fail?