Fear of starting is stopping you — not laziness

Climbing this rock wall was a way to overcome my fear of starting and in some instances, my fear of continuing. Once I reached a certain height, it did get harder.

     As a middle school teacher and journalist, I have seen many people unable to start. For journalists, crafting the right lead to hook the reader is agony. For students, it is often for different reasons, but parents and teachers often call this laziness — a term that is bandied about often in education. 

     However, I see it more closely related to what writers go through when staring at a blank page — fear.

     It is time that we start shifting our language. When we cannot start something like a project, an assignment, a new job, an exercise program, or a new hobby, let’s call it what it is. Julia Cameron said this clearly in her book The Artist’s Way, “Do not call the inability to start laziness. Call it fear.” (Cameron, 152)

     As an English Language Arts teacher, I see students stare fear in the face when given a writing assignment. Their anxiety is palpable as students ask about deadlines, hooks, and expectations. Then, the more silent types want to appear unflustered and cool. You won’t see signs of distress in these students. They will try solutions that avoid the fear. They copy essays from the Internet. They pretend they lost the assignment. They lean on AI technologies. Ultimately, they hide behind a wall of excuses and façades built to protect them from facing their fears.

     They aren’t the only ones. This past weekend, I was reminded how often I get comfortable and avoid my fears. My son and I went indoor rock climbing with his Boy Scout troop. The last time I tried climbing and rappelling was in northern Alabama while in college. As I grabbed the plastic rock formations on the wall, uncertainty filled me. The higher I got, the more I shook. I wasn’t expecting that response, but I hadn’t considered my fear of heights.

     For the first few climbs, I rappeled down to the ground shaking. Only a little, but enough that I noticed. It didn’t stop me, though. I was in my stubborn “I can do this” phase. As I kept trying, I realized that something magical was happening. The shaking was subsiding, and the confidence was building. 

     I looked around at the kids in the troop and the other adults who were climbing. Some of the kids flew up the wall, fearlessly tackling the varied difficulties in climbing. Others, including my son, who were once timid, were reaching new heights and were reaping the rewards. Their confidence and their enjoyment were growing.

     As I look at Cameron’s quote and remember this moment, I understand the power in her words. When we call our inability to do something laziness, we take away our power and ability to control the situation. We are finding fault within ourselves. If we name it as fear, we give ourselves the possibility of overcoming all that is stopping us.

     The term laziness was given to us when we were young. Students who didn’t do their work were labeled as lazy. If we weren’t told this directly, we certainly heard our parents or other adults utter the damning word a time or two. As adults, we once again employ that word as a reason but rarely is true laziness the reason for inaction. More often than not, plain, unchecked fear stops us in our tracks.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being different.

Fear of leaving our comfort zone.

Fear of trying something new and realizing you aren’t good at it.

Fear of being something other than how you see yourself.

Fear of change.

Fear of success.

Naming our inability to take action as fear doesn’t make the challenge any easier, but it does help us see it for what it truly is. We have been taught that failure is bad. An F in school can be damning and hard to recover from, so it is no wonder we want to throw our hands up and say, “I give up.” But we shouldn’t see failure as a sign of our weakness. We need to change our relationship with that word. We need to see it as an acknowledgment that we tried and aren’t giving up.

The word failure brings me immediately to one of my favorite quotes. Michael Jordan, whose legacy in basketball is indisputable, shares his view of failure: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” You see, success isn’t about getting it right the first time. It is about not giving up. The fact is, Michael Jordan was counting his failures. I am sure each one brought its burden and fear, but he moved past it. He kept going. He didn’t give up. He faced the fear, named it, and didn’t let it define him.

Now, imagine. What would happen if you did the same? What would happen if each failure was simply a stepping stone to your success? The reality is. It isn’t laziness that is stopping you. It’s fear, and it is time we call it what it is.
Ready to overcome your fears and get unstuck? Check out the Getting Unstuck checklist that help you identify what’s holding you back and help you overcome those hurdles to achieve the greatness you deserve.