Push the Damn Envelope

Sep 8

5 min read

“What if I fall?”

“Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?”

I know.

It’s cliché.

It’s probably on a coffee mug somewhere. And a throw pillow. And some piece of wall decor at Hobby Lobby in that swoopy cursive font.

But things get cliché for a reason.

Usually, buried underneath all the overuse is a little piece of truth we apparently need to keep reminding ourselves of.

And this weekend, I watched one of my kids stand right on the edge of hers.

Her comfort zone, that is.

She had the opportunity to run a different horse. One she wasn't completely comfortable with. One that required her to trust herself a little more than usual.

And she was scared.

She thought about it. She wrestled with it. She got close to that edge and looked over.

Ultimately, she didn't make the leap this time.

And you know what?

I was still ridiculously proud of her.

Because she walked up to the edge.

She considered it.

She let herself imagine that maybe she could.

And sometimes that's the first rep.

I push the envelope. A lot.

With my kids. With my students. And probably most of all, with myself.

Not recklessly. Not by shoving somebody so far beyond their limits that they lose trust in themselves or in me.

It's more like a tap.

There's the edge. Tap it.

...kinda like Adam Sandler.... "tap it in.... tap tap... tap it in..." haha!

Okay?

Tap it again.

Still okay?

Maybe we take one more little step.

And sometimes we get there and go, WHOA. Nope. Too much. Back 'er up.

So we back up.

We regroup.

We build a little more confidence, a little more skill, a little more strength, and eventually we come knock on that door again.

Because that's learning.

That's how those little glass ceilings we build over ourselves eventually crack.

And holy crap, when somebody finally breaks through one?

You can almost watch their entire perception of themselves change.

Wait...I can do that?

Yep.

You sure as hell can.

And now I wonder what else you can do.

I wasn't born particularly brave.

I think that's important to say.

I've had to practice putting myself out there.

I've failed at relationships.

I've failed at businesses.

I've failed at jobs, ideas, plans, decisions, and things I was absolutely convinced were going to work.

I've screwed things up.

I've taken chances that paid off beautifully and chances that kicked me square in the teeth.

And somewhere along the way, I finally gave myself permission to say:

Okay. We're going to try it. And whatever happens afterward, we'll deal with it.

That's it.

That's my grand life strategy.

Very sophisticated.

Because the more I did it, the more I realized something.

Failure wasn't killing me.

Sometimes it hurt like hell. Sometimes it embarrassed me. Sometimes I had to lick my wounds for a while.

But I was still standing.

And every time I survived one of those moments, the next scary thing became just a little less scary.

Bravery became a muscle.

Brené Brown helped me understand why.

Years ago, Brené Brown's TED Talk about vulnerability hit me hard.

The idea that vulnerability isn't weakness, that being willing to step into uncertainty and emotional exposure is actually tied to courage, changed the way I looked at putting myself out there.

Because courage isn't always swagger.

It isn't always walking into the room knowing you're going to nail it.

Sometimes courage sounds more like:

“Well...I have absolutely no idea how this is going to go.”

And doing it anyway.

Horse people understand this better than most.

We've brought horses home with almost no history. Horses out of situations where we genuinely didn't know what we were going to have when we swung a leg over them.

So you do your homework.

You prepare.

You use every bit of knowledge and experience you've collected.

Then eventually there comes a moment when you've done everything you can do from the ground.

You put your foot in the stirrup.

Swing over.

Sit there for half a second and think:

Okay...am I gonna die today?

Hopefully not.

Maybe you're about to have an absolutely beautiful first ride.

Maybe you're about to discover a hole in your training.

Maybe you're about to discover a hole in your knowledge.

Maybe you're about to learn that you're more capable than you thought.

You don't know yet.

That's the whole damn point.

You have to get on to find out.

That's what I want my kids to learn.

I don't need them to be fearless.

Actually, I don't particularly want them to be.

Fear gives us information.

I want them to learn what to do with it.

I want them to know the difference between:

I'm uncomfortable because this is new.

and

I'm unsafe and need to stop.

Those are very different things.

I want them to learn to tap their own boundaries.

Listen.

Adjust.

Tap again.

Sometimes leap.

Sometimes back up.

And then come back stronger.

Because I'm not trying to raise kids who never fail.

I'm trying to raise kids who aren't destroyed by failure.

Kids who can say:

Well, that didn't work.

What did I learn?

What do I change?

When do I try again?

That's a skill they'll need long after the horses are put away.

And maybe some of us adults need another rep, too.

There's probably something sitting just outside your own little fence right now.

A job you haven't applied for.

A class you haven't taken.

A business idea sitting in your Notes app.

A trip.

A conversation.

A horse.

A goal you've quietly decided you're probably not good enough for.

Something you want, but you keep waiting for the magical day when you'll finally feel confident enough to do it.

Here's the crappy part:

Confidence usually doesn't come first.

The rep does.

You do the scary little thing.

Then your brain goes:

Oh. We survived that.

So you do another.

Oh. We survived that too.

And another.

Until one day somebody calls you brave and you almost laugh because they didn't see all those tiny, scared reps that built it.

There's so much untapped potential walking around inside people who simply haven't given themselves permission to find out what they're capable of yet.

And that's a damn shame.

Because yeah...

You might fall.

You might fail spectacularly.

You might have to back up, regroup, learn something, heal something, change something, and try again.

Or...

you might fucking fly.

And you'll never know which one was waiting for you if you never leave the ground.

Mediocre can feel safe.

Familiar can feel safe.

But safe can eventually become a cage if we're only staying there because we're afraid to find out what happens outside of it.

Me?