This post is written for Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The first Wednesday of every month we post our advice, encouragement, and insecurities while revelling in the madness that is writing. For information on how to get involved, follow the link above.
January 4th Question: Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year?
My word for 2023 is FEARLESS. I want my doubts and anxieties to stop holding me back, so I can step beyond and meet my own potential for the first real time. I want to put me and my work out there as things I am proud of and let the world see them. Fear, and its entourage of other negatives (self-doubt, perfectionism, worthlessness, and comparison to others) have always held me back, making it near impossible for me to grow or evolve. I’m fed up. I refuse to be confined by it anymore.
Working as a library assistant has given me a funny philosophy on life, which is still consistently borne out. Sometimes, the words you need to hear come and find you, often in the most unlikely way. Someone walks in an offers you an entirely new perspective, without even knowing that you’ve doubted the ground you stand on. In an undirected walk through literally thousands of books, you are drawn to one that speaks to your soul, does or explores the very thing you’ve been worrying about, like a little universal nod to keep trying. It sounds stupid, I know. And yet, it keeps happening.
Why this has any baring on my word for 2023, fearless, is because two things in the last month have stood out to me. People’s words, said offhand, that made me stop and reconsider everything. The first occasion involved me speaking disparagingly about my work, stating that no-one would ever want it or read it, when my co-worker turned around and said: ‘But surely that’s their decision, not yours?’ The idea that it wasn’t my duty to (biasedly) gatekeep what was ‘worthy’ to be read blew my mind! What I might disparage, other people might adore, and both I and them deserve the opportunity to discover that, even if that four letter word – fear – sneaks back in again.
The second occasion stemmed from me conquering my fear of driving on motorways (chronically nervous driver), when a friend of the family remarked: ‘You don’t know your own limits.’ Strangely, both inspiration and sad – because I don’t. I’ve never met anything yet I couldn’t conquer, BUT I’ve also been very careful about what I’ve attempted. I have been consistently afraid (and there’s that word again) of failing, so what I think are my limits, within very narrow, circumscribed fields, might be so far below what I can actually achieve it doesn’t bare thinking about.
So, 2023 you are my FEARLESS year, where I will finish writing my manuscript, put myself out into the world over and over again, laugh in the face of my ugly doubts and insecurities, and go after everything I want because I am just as deserving as anyone else. If I fail, then I will fail better and better until it finally turns into success.
Emerald Papyrus 