The Year of Living Fearlessly

Ok, so I've taken this mantra for the year from an amazing, beautiful and totally inspiring friend, The Adventures of Cinderita. 

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and it seems to me that 2010 was about clearing out the things I didn't want, and getting really clear about what that was.  And now 2011 is going to be about setting myself up to have everything I do want, right now and for the future.

So, where does living fearlessly come into this?  Believe it or not, getting what you want is actually a really scary thing.  Think about it, we live in this sort of mentality of "things will be better when I have this or do that" but the fear comes in the form of the thought "well, what if things aren't better when I have that or do this?"  Or, I should say, this is how my mind usually works.  But the thing is, it doesn't work!  Because life is pretty good right now it feels better to stay with the ok stuff that I know than to change it for the possibility of it being awesome.  Or at least that was how I felt until very recently.  But now...

Now, I'm wondering why I would keep something in my life that wasn't awesome.  I mean, I'm worthy of having awesomeness in my life in all areas, so why would I settle for less?  Especially if I'm really not getting anything out of it that is making my life better in some way!  But that's an easy thing to say from the other side of the situation, isn't it? 

The harder part is learning to see it when I'm in the situation.  Learning to stop and say "no" when I get myself into a place I don't want to be.  During these months of really finding out what I want and who I want to be in the world it has become a lot easier to distinguish between the things that will support me in that and what things won't.  And maybe this is the key, a strong sense of self is like having the answer key.  You know what decisions you will make (most of the time) because you know yourself.  You can be decisive and take action without having to weigh every single pro and con because it is clear wether this will be something that is in line with who you are.