A little while back, I went on a surf trip.
Some mates and I took the week off work, headed to Indonesia and spent all day surfing …. or talking about surfing.
Thrilling to us…. Insufferable to everyone else 😂
Anyway, when I got back, one of the girls in my team told me she wished she knew how to surf.
“Why don’t you go and get some lessons?!” I asked.
“I’d be too embarrassed” she said.
Here’s the thing:
It ALWAYS feels embarrassing when you’re a beginner.
With surfing, or running, or ice skating or baking.
The first tray of croissants you bake – they probably aren’t gonna be perfect little arches of flaky golden pastry. Your friends and family probably aren’t gonna eat them in delight and exclaim “YOU MUST QUIT YOUR JOB AND START A FRENCH PATISSERIE AT ONCE”.
We all want to be able to grow and learn something new without embarrassing ourselves.
So many women have told me they would have started running earlier in life, if only they could do it in private. Getting all the slow and embarrassing runs out of the way FIRST, and only emerging in public when they felt “fit enough”.
We want to avoid feeling embarrassed at all costs, even if it means never learning at all.
But that’s not how it works.
We have to be willing to be bad at something before we can be good at it.
And yes, that feels embarrassing. But it has to be!
So, how do you deal with feeling embarrassed?
- Start to pay attention to it.
That’s all – you don’t need to do anything about it except clock it when it shows up. When you don’t join your friends for that bushwalk, notice it. When you don’t sign up for that running program, notice it. When you avoid feedback or coaching or support, notice it.
- Ask yourself this question:
What would be possible if I didn’t have to worry about feeling embarrassed? Or maybe What’s on the other side of this fear that I want?
- Accept that the things you want often live on the other side of fear.
And if you want to grow, and change, well, embarrassing yourself is gonna be part of the process. And that, my friend, is a very good and normal thing.
Go get after the things you want.
Embarrass yourself.
The more you do it, the more you’ll realise that everyone else is embarrassing too 😉
Building confidence and resilience are things I speak about with leadership teams a lot. If you’d like to explore a keynote or workshop, let’s chat.
