March 1, 2013 fearless georgia o'keeffe joan didion letting fear motivate you not giving in to fear 0

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life–and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”- Georgia O’Keeffe

I have a girl-crush of long-standing on the famously cranky Ms. O’Keeffe and her striking art. Check out Joan Didion’s book of essays, The White Album, for one prickly woman’s take on another prickly woman. (http://amzn.com/0374532079).  Anyway, before reading the above quote, Ms. O’Keeffe would have been the last person on earth I would ever have associated with fear.  But, of course, she was human. She also had to make her way to become Georgia O’Keeffe: the transformation didn’t happen overnight.

I was thinking of her, because I went to a networking event last night, and I kept extremely well-educated meeting young women who were telling me of the various things they wanted to do and people they wanted to be when they grew up. And, aside from one wonderfully pretentious creature (…you know that level of pretentious, wherein you almost want to hug the person because they make you laugh so hard? Exactly.), I wish them all the best. I wish them all the courage to ignore fear, and figure out their goals, and go out and start the process of achieving those goals. I can’t wish for them to never experience fear…since who am I to say that fear isn’t sometimes the best motivator?

I guess my point being… fear is normal, fear is even natural. Experiencing fear is part of life. Giving in to fear, and losing the ability to achieving your dreams, on the other hand, should not be a natural or normal part of your life. Because while the more you do, the more you’ll be able to do…the more you give in to fear, the more fear you’ll experience. And the more you will lose to fear.

Want some help confronting those fears? Email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com, or like my Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” for a free consultation!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.