{"id":9909,"date":"2018-10-08T17:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T23:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=9909"},"modified":"2018-10-07T15:03:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:03:21","slug":"dont-let-your-fear-stop-you-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/dont-let-your-fear-stop-you-try\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Let Your Fear Stop You – TRY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been known to be the first girl out on the dance floor, the girl who can\u2019t sit still if she\u2019s bored, a leader, an entrepreneur, a public speaker, a writer, and a philanthropist. What I am not known to be is a girl who does anything that requires walking long distances, running even short distances, or frankly doing any physical activity that requires breaking a sweat (except for dancing\u2026I love dancing).\u00a0 So when my friend announced that for her 50th<\/sup> birthday she wanted a group of us to go on a bicycle trip trip from Vermont to Montreal I was instantly like, \u201cYou are kidding\u2026right??\u201d Yeah, no…she wasn\u2019t kidding\u2026<\/p>\n

You have to understand that I haven\u2019t been on a bike since I was 12 years old\u2026literally\u2026my last bike was a Schwinn with a banana seat that had purple flowers on it and silver tassels hanging off the handle grips. The thought of even getting on a bike at my age terrified me!\u00a0 Not to mention the fact that I am totally accident prone – so much so that my husband would tell you that if a hundred people were to walk across a football field together barefoot I would be the one person who would step on a nail \u2013 and he is SO RIGHT! I\u2019m always the person who gets the random injuries (like me being slammed into the roof of an airplane a few weeks ago\u2026). But what was I to do? She is my friend so how could I not support her on her 50th<\/sup> birthday by going?<\/p>\n

When I told my husband and my kids I had decided to go ahead and go on the trip they literally busted out laughing. Not just a little haha laugh\u2026these were the deep from the belly laughs where they threw back their heads and held their stomachs they were laughing so hard\u2026my daughter laughed so hard she might have even cried a little.\u00a0 When she stopped laughing enough to breathe she immediately said \u201cI want video evidence!\u201d My son said, \u201cYou gotta take pics! No one is ever going to believe this!\u201d<\/p>\n

Their responses made me even more afraid then I already was. so\u00a0I decided I\u2019d better call the tour company to ask about them if they thought I could handle it but when I told them I hadn\u2019t ridden since I was 12 the person on the phone started laughing too! Then when they realized I wasn\u2019t kidding around about that they got serious and told me I needed train four to five days each week for at least a month before the trip to condition myself. Train?? Four to five days??? Who has time for that??!\u00a0 What was I getting myself into??\u00a0 And when they went on to ask me if I planned to bring my own peddles to clip I I was like, “Clip in to what??? The pedals?! Are you crazy??? That would be the worst idea ever!!!” If they knew me at all they’d realize that would be a serious accident just waiting to happen. And don’t even start me on how I felt when they said I’d have to wear a helmet and padded shorts…so not only does my hair get to be a hot mess but my behind end is going to look ridiculously huge as well…<\/p>\n

Look the\u00a0 truth is that I have second guessed my decision to go on this bike trip a hundred times. I have SO many fears about it \u2013 but I have also spent my life telling people not to let fear stop them – so how could I allow my fear to stop me from riding a bike and not feel like a total hypocrite?\u00a0 The answer is I couldn’t. I couldn’t allow my fear to stop me. If I\u2019m horrible at it – so what! If I look ridiculous – who cares? At least I\u2019ll be able to say that I TRIED my best and at the end of the day that’s all that truly matters – that we TRY!<\/p>\n

Don’t let your fear stop you – TRY!<\/p>\n

~Amy Rees Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been known to be the first girl out on the dance floor, the girl who can\u2019t sit still if she\u2019s bored, a leader, an entrepreneur, a public speaker, a writer, and a philanthropist. What I am not known to be is a girl who does anything that requires walking long distances, running even short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19347,1375,395,19351,6893,19354,19353,19350,224,163,96,3599,16056,41,67,1951,83,2486,55,19348,34,19356,5488,228,38,13164,19343,19349,7199,3673,19342,3784,19355,19352,27,112,19346,1487,19344,5754,19345],"class_list":["post-9909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accident-prone","tag-afraid","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-ashley-hill","tag-author","tag-backroads","tag-bike-trip","tag-birthday-trip","tag-confidence","tag-courage","tag-culture","tag-dalton-anderson","tag-dont-let-fear-stop-you","tag-entrepreneur","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-exercise","tag-experience","tag-feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway","tag-happiness","tag-injured","tag-integrity","tag-its-just-like-riding-a-bike","tag-laugh-out-loud","tag-leader","tag-leadership","tag-lol","tag-montreal","tag-not-very-coordinated","tag-overcome-fear","tag-philanthropist","tag-physical-activity","tag-public-speaker","tag-ride-a-bike","tag-rolln-anderson","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-improvement","tag-step-on-a-nail","tag-try-something-new","tag-vermont","tag-writer","tag-you-have-to-be-kidding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9910,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9909\/revisions\/9910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}