The Benefits of Doing Something That Scares You

We’ve all heard the old adage: Do something every day that scares you. However, on a daily basis, most of us do little to heed that advice. One of the coolest things about being a student, though, is the ability to explore and make mistakes in a fairly safe bubble. And, even though the saying might seem kind of lame, there are ultimately tons of benefits to doing things that scare you, especially while in college.

No one is promoting doing illegal substances that scare you or endangering yourself in any way, but if there is a typically safe activity that actually scares you to death, it might be worth a little investigation.

Why? First of all, it scares you for a reason. In fact, does it scare you but also excite you? If so, you may have hit on a part of you that, even though you may not access it normally, needs to be expressed. If you are typically an above sea level kind of girl but have always been intrigued, and terrified, by scuba diving, that probably means that you really want to do it!

The benefit of doing something that scares you is the fact that you may discover something that you really love. We oftentimes are most scared of trying the things that we love the most because we are afraid of rejection or not being able to perform up to our own expectations. When we actually try things that scare us and succeed, however, we automatically feel stronger and more capable, and who doesn’t want to feel more like that?

And even if things don’t go as well as you hoped, you can sometimes benefit just from having the experience. If you are terrified of auditioning for a play, the worst thing that will happen is that you will not be right for the role, but you will feel pretty exhilarated after you try out, regardless. So, even if you don’t succeed when you try something you love, there is a good chance that just attempting it will make you feel more empowered.

The next time you come across the opportunity to do something that scares you, instead of heading quickly the other way, try actually considering it. If you can’t work up the nerve, sometimes you just have to completely terrify yourself and jump in. You may be surprised and find that what you thought were your biggest weaknesses are actually your strengths.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.