Transforming Anxiety into Achievement

What if overcoming fear was the key to unlocking your true potential? Join me on "Have a Cup of Johanny" as we embark on a transformative journey through resilience and the emotional intricacies of change. This episode is a heartfelt exploration of my personal battle with fear, particularly as it relates to my passion for writing. Balancing the demands of family, the Army, and my burgeoning writing career, I confront the anxiety that arises from stepping into the unknown. The stillness imposed by the pandemic forced me to reflect deeply on my fears and the excuses that kept me from pursuing my dream of becoming an author. This introspective period highlighted the universal challenge of facing our fears to achieve meaningful personal growth.

Discover how small steps can lead to significant victories in our chapter on overcoming fear and building resilience. I share my return to the "thinking cave" to reassess my situation, regulate my emotions, and set achievable goals. Celebrating each small win, supported by my husband, family, and professional mentors, has been crucial in maintaining motivation. Through mindfulness, journaling, and meditation, I learned to use fear as a motivational tool rather than a stumbling block. This episode is a testament to the power of resilience and the importance of support systems in overcoming life's challenges. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will dive deeper into strategies for embracing change and confidently navigating transitions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the have a cup of johanni podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm growing, so this is going to be the season of growth and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me and I hope you enjoy. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the second episode of June for have a Cup of Johnny podcast. Oh, yes, this is the scary episode. Yes, this is the scary episode.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Nevertheless, this month we are exploring the powerful theme of resilience, one of my favorite things to talk about and something I can talk about for days on end. Today's episode is overcoming fear when we're faced with transition. We're going to dive deep into this kind of like emotional turmoil. I use that in my writing, too. That is so specific, so predictable when it comes to facing change and facing that fear that often accompanies change. Are you ready? Are you ready to like, let the eye of the tiger out? That sounds so cheesy. That sounds so cheesy. I don't know if I want to edit that or what. I'll keep it Okay, but are you ready? Yes, you are, yes, you are, or else you wouldn't be here. Let's go, all right, folks. So change can be scary. Talk about resilience while we're making change moves, making money moves, whatever right. It pushes us out of our comfort zone and I am big on having that understanding that in order to change like, one has to step out of that comforting circle, that known circle that makes us comfortable, and because of that, that is very scary to all of us, not to some of us, to all of us. It challenges us to face the unknown and that's where fear really comes from, because we just don't know the outcome. But what exactly is fear and why does it have such a grip on our necks during transitions? Why, Like I said before in the previous episode, for me lately, my recent examples of fear really come from my writing side of my life.

Speaker 1: 3:06

I feel like I have family side, army side and writing side. I am split into those three cups and usually the army and the family side don't give me too much anxiety just because family cup, right. I've been in there since I can remember. Army side I've been in there a while, right, but've been in there since I can remember. Army side, I've been in there a while, right, but it's the writing one that I haven't really been there a while, so I don't really know too much of that. So it's more unknown stuff than known stuff to me whenever I pour myself into that cup. So the examples that I have when it comes to beer really it's mostly resides in that cup and I'll share my own story and it's something that I've talked about and I wrote about as well on the blog on haveacupofjohnnycom.

Speaker 1: 4:00

That just embarking, just making that change right, or telling myself that I will embark on being an author, was so anxiety ridden. When was it? I want to say like five years ago. Four or five years ago I was an E8 and I knew I was on the downward slide of my career, right, because the highest enlisted rank that one can have is E9. And I have that rank right now.

Speaker 1: 4:31

But at that time I was like this is it so I either retire in this rank or I make it still retire? So it's like either way, right, retirement is around the corner and I had to face that first. But then I also had to face the fact that I was still not ready at that time to do the thing that I love on this second phase of my life, once I retire, and that was a scary thing to face to think about. It was like this monster that I didn't have the tools necessary to embark on something that I've been yearning for for as long as I can remember, for as long as I can remember and I think it started from that moment that my mama, the lady that raised me, my grandmother she put me on her lap and, as the sun would go down, she taught me how to read. My mind just opened up and then I would imagine these worlds from these books and these poems and that gave me that peace, that escape that I needed. A lot of bad moments in my life right, if you heard me say it, my childhood was kind of like my horror era. So I really relied on books for that escape, for that peace that I needed and, since I can remember, always loved books and I've always wanted to write them, not just read them. I've always wanted to write them as well, because I wanted to give that back to others as well. I felt like I needed to give back because I took so much from books as a child it changed my entire life that I felt the right thing to do was to also write them and to allow little kids that share some of my hardships and my pain and my scars to have another outlet to escape. That is my big why, but, but, but.

Speaker 1: 6:57

But at that point in my life I hadn't prepared to embark on that journey. I hadn't prepared to embark on that journey. I really hadn't. I had done nothing and if anything, I had like steeped my little toes in the water a few times and then brought it right out.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Then the pandemic happened and quarantine happened. It forced me to be silent and be still. Then that silence and that stillness, then that fear became louder and then I had no choice but to really hear it, to look at it, to face it, and it was disappointing. My fear boiled down to disappointment on myself for allowing every excuse in the book to keep me from doing the things that I wanted to do. Every excuse in the book to keep me from doing the things that I wanted to do. And I tell you, it was every excuse in the book. I'm too busy, I'm doing this. Oh, jonathan did write this and this and that, everything right. But the fact is that if you make time, you will have time, and that is something that I tell other folks quite often as well. But I was not doing it for myself at that time.

Speaker 1: 8:27

So, in that stillness, in that silence, I made the first step. I opened up a Wattpad account and I wrote a novel in there. I wrote several short stories in there and I started getting traction. I started to get reads and that emboldened me and then I went from there. But then something happens, right, as it usually happens when you are embarking on change, folks, it's like you can expect dips on that road, you can expect potholes, you can expect hills, climbs, you name it. It will be there on that road that you're embarking when it comes to change, and that's what happened. So I was emboldened.

Speaker 1: 9:21

I knew since I was young that I had a talent expressing feeling, thought, through writing. I knew that. I knew that I can write stories that can grip emotions right, that can keep people on the page. I knew that I can do that key people on the page. I knew that I can do that. Then, after the quarantine was over and everything, I went ahead and put myself down for a writing conference. Everything came crashing down on the last day of that writing conference. You may have heard me say this. I think I did a podcast episode on it as well and wrote a blog post on it and everything came crashing down on me.

Speaker 1: 10:07

Mind you, I know that I have this knack, this talent, but the comments of others, it's just like it's horrible. It's something completely different when you hear fear inside your head, but when somebody else externally has those same words that you just heard your fear tell you, it's like the validation you don't want to have. And that's what happened on this last day of this writing conference. In a nutshell, somebody told me that because I write the way that I write, that it was not sellable in the United States. And go back to the podcast episodes and all of that right, so I write within an authentic soul, right, because I mine a lot, my experiences.

Speaker 1: 11:03

And for someone to tell me that that the way that I write is not valid in the United States, it hurt a lot, because how I write is based on how I've lived. And when somebody says that and they don't understand that about my writing, I don't think they understand that they really are almost like rejecting me as well. And no fault to them, they didn't know that Right, that's something that I know, but they didn't know. Still, it hurt quite a lot. It hurt quite a lot because that was my fear, talking through somebody else external to me, and it was like, see, I told you, you know, inside my head, I told you you couldn't do this. And I went back home and I stopped writing. I did, I did, I allowed that to keep me from moving forward and, like I told you, that's what happens when you are embarking on change You're going to have those dips, you're going to have those pauses in there, but as long as you keep going, right. And that's what happened. Like I stopped, don't get me wrong. I stopped. I call that a tactical pause. I took a tactical pause and I kept going.

Speaker 1: 12:31

I went ahead and enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University, got accepted, went ahead and went through the curriculum while I was doing the Sarma Angels Academy at the same time. That was wild. That was wild people. And I graduated and I walked and received my diploma in San Diego. Wow, I did that because I refuse to let fear determine how I'm going to live my life and I also did that as a safeguard, remember, like when I embark on something, I do pros and cons, either on the journal or in my head. So that way I understand my limitations because I'm also realistic. While I am positive, I'm also realistic. While I am positive, I'm also realistic, and that's what I did here. I was like you know what? There may be something in there. While what that person said really hurt, there may be something in there that I need to learn from. Maybe I do need to learn the rules of writing from professors, from people in the industry, because then, once I know the rules, then I understand how to break them in a way that is authentic to me, my voice and my characters. And that was what I put inside my head. So that way I can embark on this curriculum for the MFA in creative writing and I can graduate. And that's what happened I was able to.

Speaker 1: 14:10

While fearful of everything, fearful that a failure, that this thing that I wanted to embark on I was not going to be successful, fear of not being able to complete it all goes back to fear of failure. I'm big on fear of failure, that I'm a recovering procrastinator, and that's where everything boils down to. Once I've jotted down on my journal and thought about it. That's what everything boils down to for me. Everybody else has different fears, but for me, fear of failure. And I did this to ease that fear of failure because I'm like, if I'm prepared, if I prepare myself and I know I'm a traditional learner, that's how I learned If I prepare myself traditionally and I have this accreditation, this will give me the confidence to step out there and really fulfill the role that I've always yearned to fulfill, which is to be an author, to write compelling stories, to be able to connect with, to write compelling stories, to be able to connect with people through these stories, to be able to give back to the community with something where they can see themselves, where they can know that they're not alone, where they can know that their issues, their scars, their trauma is not only on their shoulder.

Speaker 1: 15:21

It has been on other people's shoulders as well. And that's how I faced the fear kind of like gave it a big hug and embrace it. It's kind of like acknowledging right, I know you're there. You know, I know you're there. I know that something within you may be real, because I'm a big believer. Something there is truth, or else it wouldn't have pricked my brain. Something in there is true, but not all of it.

Speaker 1: 16:01

And I think exaggeration of fear right, the exaggeration that fear causes, where it's like very catastrophic in the mind, in the brain that is what is very unreal, because more often than not it's not going to be this big catastrophic event that occurs. It's just going to be a setback, right, a misstep, something, an embarrassing moment, something, but it's not going to be this catastrophic where our lives will end. And that's how I was able to kind of like embrace that and still go after what I wanted to do and prepare myself for this next phase of my life. And I was able to do this with certain strategies that at the time I don't really put words into it, but now, thinking about it, I understand that they fit into a certain lexicon. So in reality, what I was doing while I was facing this fear was setting incremental goals. So if you heard my story, you see that I was like I'm going to do this one thing. I started on Wattpad, but I'm going to do this one story, I'm going to do this short story and I'm going to do this.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Then I had a setback. Then I had to go back into the thinking cave. You know, have this moment of where I look inward, assess, breathe through it. Oh, my goodness, it was so much breathing, so much breathing just to get my heart rate, my fear, in check, so that way I can move forward. And then I went back to set those incremental goals because I assessed that I needed some sort of certification, some sort of guidance, mentorship, in order to feel more confident in this change that I was embarking on and incrementing back again. Let's do it workshop by workshop and through it all. I told my husband this he always knows my goals and how I'm approaching things because he's my cheerleading squad, he's like my support squad and of course, I have my fur family in there and my kids in there as well. They see me putting in the work as they're going through their school. I'm going through my own school and we support one another and it's that comfort that we get from being part of a unit which is really my support system of family and friends.

Speaker 1: 18:37

And these were the strategies that I used throughout to face that fear of having to become prepared for the next phase of my life and step into a goal that I have set for myself so long ago that at the time just seems so far away, so hard to reach, and that gave me really imposter syndrome quite often, where I didn't really think that I was worthy of such a goal or I was worthy of being successful in this new role. And I did this. I embarked on mindfulness, journaling quite a lot, meditating quite a lot, setting small goals and then achieving those small wins and just like exploiting them like a snowball effect right, you roll a small win into another small win until it becomes a bigger win and then with each one I'm celebrating so that way I can stay motivated to keep going, also seeking support from my husband, my family I think I started there this time as well so even from professionals as well. These were the strategies that really helped me overcome and face that fear of can I do this, can I really do what I wanted to do? But folks to close it out.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Overcoming fear is not about eradicating it entirely. Okay, like it will always be there. It will always be that small voice or that little devil I think some people see it as that, envision it as that that is on your left shoulder. It will never go away, it will always be there, and I will say that if somebody doesn't feel any fear, I would think my humble opinion that perhaps they're overconfident and perhaps they need to work on that right. Because I think a small amount of fear is healthy, because it keeps you on your toes and it gives you kind of like that jolt, that motivation to not just to keep going but to do a good job, because when you're a bit fearful it means that you care, that you are paying attention to the outcome, to the process. It's nothing wrong with that, it's nothing abnormal to feel fear, especially when we embark on something new, because we're human beings, we want to be in the known, not in the unknown. So I wouldn't say it's realistic to eradicate it entirely, but it is realistic to move forward even while we're feeling it.

Speaker 1: 21:15

It is possible if you go back to the strengths of mindfulness, of setting increment goals and seeking support from family, friends and professionals. But as we wrap today's episode, remember that each step you take against fear, that voice or that little devil, is a step towards a stronger, more resilient you. Because the more that you face it, the more that you do that knockout punch right Against fear, the stronger that that muscle gets. I see resilience as a muscle and when you face your fear, you are working out that resilient muscle. So join us as we explore adaptation strategies strategies Now that we embark on change, now that we face our fear. How do we adapt this to our lives? So we'll dive into the ways that we can adjust ourselves when the winds of change blow our way.

Speaker 1: 22:20

I can't wait to see you next Wednesday. Bye, to see you next Wednesday. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment, do a rating, if you can, on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.