Tough Love Taglines, Part 2
The months right after college were some of my lowest. I’ll paint the picture: I was living with my parents in a strange new place, had no money, no friends, no job, and I'd just been dumped over the phone all while getting rejected from PT schools. Titanic came out that year. Get out your violins…I saw it 3 times in the theater, twice alone. I cried myself to sleep several times, deluded myself into thinking I’d meet Leonardo one day, and even attempted charcoal sketches. I know, it was rough times. Jokes aside though, the most profound lesson I’ll take from that time was overcoming my fear of failure.
I’ll never forget when my rounded shouldered insecure frame marched into my parents' room waking them (it was only 10pm) to admit I had been holding back. “I am so afraid I will put everything into this, everything I have. I will expose myself, dream too hard. And then fail anyway.” I cried. “I am afraid to try too hard. To give it everything I’ve got. If I do so, and still get rejected from PT school, then the very depths of me are not good enough.”
This was before vulnerability was cool, so it was a big deal for me. My mother and I stayed up for an hour. She counseled me, encouraged me, challenged me, and held me when I was about to give up. “I believe in you. You need to believe in you.”
A photo from that low time.
A few months later, summer arrived. It was the best one of my life: I met fun friends, forgot about the boy, got a job waiting tables at the beach, made some money, and had fun partying before heading off to PT school that fall. We have to fail before we can succeed.
Fail in here so you don’t fail out there.
Do everything to your ability. Are you holding back because you are afraid that if you give it your best you will still fail? Inside the studio, it doesn’t matter. We fail inside a brave space so we can succeed outside where it truly counts. Don’t win the plank contest. Fail it. Practice and experiment to fatigue and you will fail before everyone else…that way you are less likely to fail in the real world.
Can you think of a time you held back? How did that impact your life? Now think of a time when you got something you wanted, an opportunity maybe, something you worked for. Was it everything you had? Why did you go all in?
Here's a class where I say a few of these taglines. Try it for free for a month! password: masterclass928
Don’t Make a Fuss.
If we wait too long, if we wait for everything to be perfect, if we wait until we are ready, it may be too late. Start now. There’s no “getting your ducks in a row”. Dive in and do it. I have to give credit for this tagline to my 10th-grade English teacher, Mr. C, from Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia. I am surprised I carry his words with me and preach them in class since he wickedly forced us to memorize the Prologue from The Canterbury Tales and recite it for a grade with a proper Middle English accent! The irony is not lost on me. If our class complained about work or asked too many unnecessary questions designed to delay the coursework, Mr. C would lean forward in his chair (he rarely left his chair) and project: “Don’t make a fuss!”
So, the lesson here is to go for it. Stop putzing around, no more complaining, or dilly-dallying on moving forward…make a move! It will never be perfect and that is what makes it right.
Tough love Taglines Part 2 homework! Think about the times when you were riddled with self-doubt. How did you overcome it? What lines did you say to yourself, still say to yourself? Make a list of ways in which you stall your own progress. I made my list, again, while writing this, calling myself out on “making a fuss” and holding myself back in case I go all in and fail. A wise, wise woman once told me, “You have realized your gift, now it is your responsibility to share it with the world.” Go share your gifts!
