How To Overcome Fear and Move Forward With Mussar

A few weeks ago, I started having very intense thoughts and memories of something that happened when I was in grad school 25 years ago. I did an elegant experiment, and got a hint of a major result. If true, it would have been a major find, the kind that can boost a career.

What did I do next? I talked myself out of it. I decided that it was a false positive artifact, based on a follow up experiment. What I remember most was how afraid I was. I was so freaked out that I didn’t push it. In hindsight, I should have grabbed that result with my teeth, and pushed the heck out of it to be absolutely sure it was wrong, before deciding to move on.

It wasn’t wrong. 2 years later, someone else published that major result.

Why did this surface for me now? I think I needed to process the experience. I never admitted that I blew it until now, and by allowing myself to feel a bit of sadness over it, I am healing a wound that I didn’t even know was there. Big opportunities don’t come along very often, and as I begin my journey in Rabbinical school, I don’t want to miss the next one.

And as often happens, the next soul trait for me os just what I needed to work on: Enthusiasm. It brings to mind a Mussar practice we all can try.

***************Here’s The Mussar Practice**************

Don’t let fear delay you. Ask for help.

Enthusiasm is the soul trait that helps us overcome procrastination. And fear is one of the primary things that leads to procrastination. Fear of failure and fear of success are two sides of the same coin. Neither is rational. Enthusiasm can help us overcome fear.

I should have asked for help. My friend Neal was all over the promising result, and would have helped me think it through and figure it out.

While these big opportunities are rare, small opportunities manifest all the time. If you cultivate the habit of getting help, you’ll have both the practice and relationships in place when the big one shows up.

Some may turn to other people for help. Others may turn to the Divine. Wherever you turn, the more help you can get sorting through various challenges, the better you’ll be in the long run. 

***********************************************************

My life has been great, despite having missed a chance for a big discovery. But the scientific discovery was delayed a few years. Who knows what might have come of it if we’d made that discovery earlier?

This week in my Torah class, we were writing about the story of the spies in Numbers 13. When the Israelites first reached the promised land, Moses sent 12 spies to check it out. They came back with a report of giants in the land, declaring “we are like grasshoppers in their eyes.” As a result of our fear, we had to wander in the desert 40 years; a dream delayed.

What about you? Have you ever missed a big one because fear held you back? Did you wander more that you would have liked instead of taking the straight path? 

Want to know what soul traits might be making hard for you to overcome fear? Take the soul trait quiz. 

The post How To Overcome Fear and Move Forward With Mussar appeared first on American Mussar.