It’s pretty natural to take time at the end of each year and reflect on how it went. In previous years, I’ve taken time to reflect on how much I’ve grown and what I would like for the new year to come. Usually, this is in terms of a goal that I want to achieve—i.e. read 52 books, which yes, I have done. But this year I decided to follow the trend of picking a word that reflects an attitude I would like to take with me into 2019.
Choosing a word as
I admit that I’ve never been the biggest fan of choosing a word in this manner. Placing a word on an entire year feels restricting to me, and leaves no room for me to grow with whatever life hands me that year. However, as I took time to sit down and really reflect on my year ahead, one word kept popping into my head. So I decided to adopt it.
This year, I want to be fearless.
Being creative has never been a difficulty for me. I’ve always enjoyed trying new creative pursuits and seeing what happens. But in the back of my mind, there’s always been a small twinge of doubt. Doubt that my new creative project won’t work, or in more likely circumstances, wondering if it’s even worth doing something creative if I’m not even making money from it. Money tends to squander my joy in terms of creating. In my head, if I’m not making any money, than what’s the point of wasting so much time and energy doing it?
After years of creating and doubting, I have this desire to break free from this hold that money seems to have on me. Instead of worrying so much
I want to be fearless in trying new things, especially in terms of creating new content.
Now the term ”fearless” actually isn’t a new one for me. It’s a word that I usually associate with a friend of mine from back home. Fallon and I actually worked together at the local Dairy Queen, and during that time I was able to watch her grow as an artist, and a faithful follower of the “fearless” queen herself—Taylor Swift. After experiencing incredible loss in her life, Fallon incorporated “fearless” into her art as well as her everyday life. She even walked around every single day wearing this black band that said FEARLESS in bold white letters. For Fallon, “fearless” wasn’t just a good album written by
So, of course, it made perfect sense to reach out to Fallon and ask her current take on this word. I typed up a DM over on her Instagram, and her response took me from thought to action in terms of applying “fearless” to my life.
“Lately, to me being fearless means taking full advantage of the opportunities life throws at you, e
specially when they take you out of your comfort zone,” writes Fallon. “It means trying things you’ve never done before, but also having this courage to say ‘no’ to the things that are no longer bettering you. One of the scariest things I’ve found was leaving the safety-blanket of a constant, whether that be a job, location, person, or anything else. But at the end of the day, taking that leap & being fearless in the pursuit of a happier, more inspired life, will always be worth it. I’ve taken the most leaps of my life this year—for work, for love, for happiness—and I’ve never been happier.”
Fallon points out that being fearless means making the most of where you are, trying new things, even if it’s something you aren’t used to. I’ve been used to having a money-making mindset my entire life. It’s a principle I grew up with; one that was hammered into my head during college, and now it’s something I constantly think about during my 9 to 5. Creating without the focus on money certainly is something I’m not used to. But in all honesty, I’m in the perfect place to do it. I make enough money to financially support myself. I don’t need to worry about a side project supporting me. In my free time, I can enjoy the act of creating without fear of it needing to make a few bucks.
Although being fearless is something I can apply to multiple facets of my life, I think it’s going to really challenge this specific area of my life. I want to be fearless in trying new creative things.
So in light of all of this, I want to announce to all of you that I am launching a YouTube channel!
Video is something I’ve been playing around with for a while now over on IGTV. I’ve enjoyed creating videos, but I figured it was time to give it a bit more attention. I recently did a poll over on my Instagram stories to see if my followers really want, and 85% percent chose videos over blog posts. For someone who loves writing on a blog, this was fascinating to see. So I’m giving it a whirl.
The plan is to launch a few first videos within the next week, so at this moment it’s blank. But if you want to be the first to see when those videos are up, you can…
Am I nervous? Yep, absolutely. But I choose to be fearless. Guys, I’m not incredibly good at it yet. But I want to try.
Here’s to a year of trying and a year of being fearless.
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