Putting in the reps
I’m celebrating an engagement.
Not mine, my favourite cousin’s. He came to visit last weekend, having recently proposed to his girlfriend.
I keep thinking about the day he came home from work to the apartment we shared in Joburg and told me, over a Nando’s quarter chicken and peri chips on the sofa, that he’d asked someone out on a coffee date.
Six years later, we’re planning a wedding.
In that one small tiny choice he made to approach her that day, both their lives changed forever.
There’s no way of knowing when you ask someone out for the first time whether this will be the person that you end up marrying.
So it’s easier to just not ask.
Not put your hand up. Not put your name forward. Not finish that job application. Not start the side hustle. Not book the trip. Not update your CV. Not post on Instagram about your new project when you’re a week away from launching 👀.
Which is the thing that I’m not doing right now. My new podcast comes out in a week (May 23rd!) and I’ve been avoiding talking about it on IG.
As I talked it through with my friend Ijeoma during the week, who is the author of The Mechanics of Belonging, I realised the thoughts that have been underneath my hesitation are essentially the “your ideas are not that important”, and “who do you think you are?” kinds of thoughts.
“It feels so cringe for people to see me trying, so I guess I’m afraid they’ll think it’s stupid,” I told her.
I’m smack in the middle of the ‘intimidated’ stage of The Possibility Pattern, where you’re face to face with your desires and dreams and are afraid of how authentic they are going to require you to be. It’s that ‘holy s**t, now I actually have to go and do it’ scary feeling.
I’d rather just hide, and stay safe instead of potentially being rejected and exposed as not belonging.
Which is why celebrating my cousin’s engagement this week has been such a good reminder to me of how much is possible on the other side of one small hard thing.
Especially because there was a time where I wouldn’t have believed my cousin if he’d come home and told me that story. He used to be the most introverted out of our gang of cousins. Until one day he decided to start making a point of talking to people everywhere he went. Making conversation with waiters, baristas, taxi drivers, people at the bar while ordering his drink, and even went on a solo trip around Europe.
By the time he was just a boy standing in front of a girl, asking her out for coffee, it was a no brainer.
When you consistently take particular actions, your brain wires neural pathways that support those actions making it easier and easier the more you do it. So every time you put in the reps and do it, you’re reinforcing the beliefs that come with taking those actions. Which is how neuroplasticity works - your brain constantly rewiring itself based on new things you’ve learned.
It sounds obvious, but most people are making hundreds of choices every single day that move them away from what they want in life because they are the easier, safer choice that means they get to keep hiding.
We think it’s the big choices we make that change our lives.
But it’s doing the small hard things over and over again that turn us into the kind of person who can make those big choices.
Which means, I gotta go post on IG about the podcast.
What’s your small hard thing for the day going to be?
P.s If you want to know more about how to teach your brain to stop feeling out of place, you can order Ijeoma’s The Mechanics of Belonging book here!
P.p.s Did you know that pressing the heart at the top or bottom of this email (or on Substack) helps more people find out about this newsletter? Thanks for supporting my work ❤️
Journal Prompts
What is something you’re avoiding doing or hiding from?
What is the positive intention underneath doing this? What benefit do you get from hiding or avoiding? (There’s always a benefit otherwise we wouldn’t do it)
In what ways do you already have that? Or in what alternative ways could you give yourself that?
Now, what next smallest step could you take in the direction of your answer to #1?