There are these moments during the day, well, at least my days recently, that scare the absolute hell out of me. The only thing keeping me going right now, is continuing to move forward. 

I am 9 weeks into my journey, with 5 more to go, and the weirdest thing about it all is having this moments in my stomach where I just feel fear. This is a good sign in many many ways, but it is new and strange. I take this as a positive sign because when I was living my life way back when…there was no fear. There wasn’t fear of the new things that could be brought into my life – good and bad. There was me, just being me, comfortable in the place where I was.

I wasn’t growing. 

You could probably make the argument that I was actually going backwards. 

Like I said before, the only thing that is keeping me going is the constant focus on moving forward. These goals I have in front of me are not new, but being at a place where I can finally reach out and grab them is. I feel like I am reaching a tipping point, one where I am currently beyond anywhere I have ever been before, and I am just about to takeoff into a place I could have never even dreamed of. 

Watching yourself change daily is fun, hard, exciting, demanding, and every other emotion in the world. You have to take a little bit of time to sit back and look at it all, and then…you have to continue walking. 

There is no doubt in my mind that I will see the final day of this journey and that I will have accomplished what I wanted to…it’s just, scary at times. There’s no reason in the world to stop, which I won’t…I guess all I am really trying to convey here is that courage is not about lacking fear…I think it’s about acting in the face of fear.

I used to think courage was this all powerful moment where you just blast through any obstacle without any other feeling. I now know this isn’t true. Courage really is about making the choice to keep going despite being scared to death. I think it comes from deep within a person to make that choice.

I think it’s important to also remember that you don’t have to do this alone. Your journey is yours…your dream is yours, but you need a supporting cast. Could you imagine if Frodo tried to go to Mordor by himself?! HA! He would have gotten himself killed at least 15 times. His supporting crew, the people who believed in the journey, kept him sane and going towards the end product.

I used to believe that strength was doing everything by yourself. What I ended up realizing is that strength is being able to put everything you can into your dream, and to put a few pieces of the puzzle into the hands of people who believe in you and what you are up to. This is scary! Maybe that’s why I have been a roller coaster the past couple of days. I am reaching a point in my journey where I need to consult people who have made my goal their job…people who know how to produce the results I want…because in all honesty, I have no clue. 

It comes down to trust. 

As you grow older, I think it really becomes harder and harder to just inherently trust people. There are so many examples in your life where you have just gotten absolutely shafted by people that it becomes hard to not be a little bit cynical about things. But putting your faith and trust in someone else gives them the opportunity to really surprise you…and I would rather live my life happily surprised that unpleasantly pissed off all the time.

Be involved in as much of the process as you can, but don’t micromanage people. Remember, they know…you don’t. The day you know as much as they do, that’s when you can have a conversation. 

Forward we go! We shall trek more of the unknown waters and see what lands are ahead! Whatever comes our way, whatever may try to stop us, with the sweat on our brows and the strength in our backs, we shall conquer. 

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project