Flounder or flourish?

Mona Benjamintz
Jun 17, 2019
2 min read

Updated: 3 hours ago

Young adult Asian woman in business attire, a white shirt and black narrow skirt, with a red cape and red eye mask posing poses confidently with her right hand outstretched to her right side, palm up, as if asking you a yes or no question, with an expression that shows she is challenging you to answer. Background is plain white.

Do you flounder or flourish? It depends on your attitude towards your fears. Take fear of failure, for example. Do you allow fear of failure to keep you from acting towards your goals because you don’t want to mess up? Do you play it safe? You might take little steps, too little to amount to reaching your goal within your lifetime. You may feel inadequate, deciding that you just don't have what it takes to realize your dreams. So, you barely try. You hesitate. You flounder.

There is another way.

Rewind back to acknowledging your fear of failure but this time choose to react differently. Yes, your fear is real. But it is not the boss of you. You have a choice. You understand that mistakes will be made, but they do not define who you are. You can learn from them. You choose to believe that every lesson learned along the way creates valuable insights that will help you. You decide that you’re going to go for it.

Your goal is too important. Give it your best effort.

You make a commitment to yourself. You’re motivated to do what it takes to reach your goal. You’re willing to get out of your comfort zone because you know that this is the only way you can get to where you want to be. Instead of hesitating, you take a deep breath, mentally focus on your dream and lean into the discomfort.

The next thing you notice is that you’ve just accomplished one step in the direction of your goal. Then you move on to the next step. And another step. Now, you have created momentum. You’re building confidence, bit by bit. You believe in your dream and you believe in yourself. You flourish.