Last year was my year to be brave.
I needed to show up for life and start saying yes more because I had been living in a safe bubble keeping myself protected, or so I thought. Seth Godin teaches that the riskiest thing someone can do is the safe thing because safe is ordinary and goes unrewarded. I can see where he’s right.
I’ve been wondering what 2018 will be my “year of” but I think it’s starting to unfold.
I’m not going to stop being brave, but I’m going to be adding a layer to it.
Last year was all about learning to be brave for me.
It looks like this year is about being brave enough to learn how to speak up about for what’s right.
I’ve never really done this before. I always let others do as they please thinking it was none of my business. After all, who was I to tell them how to live their lives or what choices to make.
I feel like I’ve always had a fairly strong personal moral compass, but until this year I’ve never felt brave enough to speak up when someone else is missing the boat.
The learning I am going to do is figure out how to speak up in a way that feels good. I don’t want to be mean or arrogant, I certainly don’t want my ego involved, I don’t want it to be condescending or judgmental.
Last week I found myself speaking up to someone who explodes and immediately shuts me down every time I open my mouth. My legs were shaking and my mouth was dry, but what he was doing wasn’t ok and I simply walked up to him and said so.
Yes he exploded. He called me names. He was yelling and accusing me of being in the wrong. He threatened to ram into my truck.
I may have engaged for a moment, then swore at him, told him to go ahead and ram my truck, and then walked away. So much for standing up for what’s right ;).
I still have some learning to do.
In hindsight I wished my legs hadn’t been shaking. I wish I felt at peace inside. I would have said things differently, I would have allowed him to explode and accuse me of all of the things, and I would have just calmly reflected his behaviour back to him.
There was a time not that log ago I wouldn’t have said anything. I would have just walked by wanting to avoid the conflict.
In the end, he sort of apologized to the person he needed to for what he was doing that wasn’t right.
In the end I was glad that I spoke up, even if I didn’t execute it perfectly.
My goal is to be brave and speak up while remaining peaceful inside no matter how the person on the other side reacts.
This year I’m going to work on that.