Approaching life fearlessly

I had the pleasure this weekend of taking a running clinic from Darcy Franklin. Darcy is a kick butt triathlete and all around cool person, and she had lots of great information and some helpful drills for me to use to transform my running... of course if you've ever seen me run, you know that it needs a lot of work... probably about as much work as my swimming, but I'll save that for a different post :)
Anyhoo, I'll save you all of the nitty gritty about the clinic, but I'll just say that by the end of the clinic my running form was much improved (even if Betsy did say that my new nickname should be Pony) :) and I am optimistic that it will continue to improve because we were given "homework" to do for the next month to help us incorporate our new-found knowledge into our running. If you are looking to improve your running and reduce injury, I highly recommend taking this clinic the next time it's offered. Let me know if you're interested and I can give you Darcy's contact info.
On to the title of this post: "Approaching Life Fearlessly". I recently starting reading a book by Max Lucado (recommended to me by Jorna. Thanks JP!) titled Fearless. It is basically about not living your life in "fear", turning your worry and fear over to God and letting yourself trust completely in His plan.
I guess I had always envisioned myself as a fearless person. I like to think I trust in God completely and put myself firmly inside His will, giving myself a "whatever happens, happens" mentality. But when I put myself under the microscope I realize that I really am not very fearless at all...
Now, I'm not saying that I'm a coward or anything, but I am saying that there are definite areas in my life that could use some big improvement. Isn't this the case with everyone?
I think we sometimes get confused and think that being comfortable means that we have dealt with our insecurities. We also tend to think that being comfortable is much better than taking risks, because risks make us feel insecure. But really, you have to be secure in order to take risks and those aren't comfortable at all!
Using the above (il)logic, I am realizing that I sometimes set limits or "caps" on myself and I don't even know I am doing it! I'm just trying to be comfortable!
At work I constantly find myself putting off or avoiding situations that challenge me or make me do uncomfortable things. Why? Because I am sitting very comfortably in my "security" and as a result I have become afraid of failure!
In the gym, I do modifications of exercises that I have not yet mastered (example: pull-ups), and then I excuse myself for the exercises that I won't even attempt yet, such as a rope climb. I have told myself that I have never been able to climb a rope, so I will set that challenge aside for later, after I have mastered other things... like pull-ups!
That sounds reasonable and logical, right? And it probably is, but I realized on Saturday that I had been avoiding the rope not because I'm not ready for it, but because I have never been able to do the rope climb (think back to grade school gym class), and so I am afraid of trying (in front of everyone. oooooh!!) and failing.
When did this start happening?
If I'm honest with myself, I think I have to admit that it has been happening my entire life, but it has just been getting worse as I get older. I like to think of it as a cumulative effect of years of little insecurities that have now built into bigger ones. Pretty soon if I don't change something, I'm going to keep heading down the wrong path, and I will NEVER get what I want out of life. I will get the life I envision, but it won't be as great of a life as it could have been if I had only envisioned better, riskier things!
How do I fix it? In addition to putting my trust fulling in God, I need to start living a little more "securely" by taking some more risks. I need to put myself into positions where I might fail... and then I have to be ok with failure. More importantly I need to actually be ok with the SUCCESS that may result from taking some risks.
I know this much: it starts here and now. With every decision I make... and I will have my first "risky" moment tomorrow evening, as this morning I spoke with someone at the SLP Lion's Club and agreed to be a speaker at their meeting tomorrow night. The pressure! The fear! the... PUBLIC SPEAKING!! *gulp* :-/ Wish me luck!!