It’s ok to not face your fears

I didn’t want to dive for the baseball.

While I’m not necessarily out of shape, I am not what you’d call “athletic” when it comes to sports. It’s ok, you can laugh at me.

When my boyfriend’s 6-year old nephew begged me to participate in the baseball dive at a sports themed music festival, my first reaction was “nope, not happening kiddo.” My gut was telling me this was a bad idea.

He replies with,

“But Jenny, sometimes in life, you gotta face your fears!”

Facing our fears is a topic that resonates with us here at CustomerServiceLife.com. Like that time I faced my fears and played my first open mic. Or, when I took a CHP motorcycle training course and left early.

In fact, we have several articles on our blog about facing our fears:

• Got Fears? You Are Not Alone
• The best piece of advice to challenge fears when starting a new job
• 3 Roads To Fearless Customer Service
• Forty, Freezing, Fear, and Failure
• Out of the Comfort Zone and on to the Stage
• What Would You Do If You Could Not Fail?

I thought maybe I should just put on my big girl pants, not be a fraidy cat and be cool. My intuition was screaming at me to not participate, however.

You can imagine what I did next.

“Kiddo, you’re right. I should face my fears.”

He grabs my phone and says he’ll record the jump.

I approach the deck and leap into a soft pit of sweaty foam, wet from others leaping into it. I didn’t know this until it was too late. Fun.

As you can see in the video, I land funny. I’m forget I am not a 6 year old, pliable and flexible with a wonderful ability to bounce back so easily. I pull a muscle in my neck that hurts for about 2 weeks after this day. Luckily, it was nothing serious, but the discomfort was enough to make me question “facing my fears”.

It’s ok to not face your fears

While we see so much out there about “feeling the fear” and going about it anyway, it’s perfectly acceptable to not take the leap. If you choose to listen to your gut that is yelling at you to NOT do whatever it might be, it’s ok. You’re not weak or lame. Perhaps you’re much smarter. You’re not ready. It isn’t the time. Give yourself some credit for not taking the leap if you really don’t want to. Sometimes the smartest route to take is a simple “no thanks”.

It’s ok to not take risks in customer experience

In Customer Experience, we often go out of our way to enhance the customer’s journey. How can we make things easier? More engaging? Interesting? Helpful? We can buy the fancy software if we think it might be better for business. We can spend thousands of dollars on a robust platform. In some cases however, it isn’t the big leaps that we take to enhance the customer’s journey but instead the simplest steps. We can say “no” to complicated processes. We can say “yes” to a service that makes things easier. We don’t have to go out on a limb every single time.

 

In conclusion, I’ve found that some of the scariest, hardest things I’ve done in my life have led to incredible insight, wisdom and make for some exceptional stories. I also know that when I decide to not challenge myself in those moments, for whatever reason, I also gain incredible insight, wisdom and still have a story to tell. Do what makes sense for you!