It’s Showtime: Don’t Let Fear Slow Down Your Fitness

“Don’t let fear hold you back.”

At the end of February, I attended a local elementary school talent show supporting the school and the participants. It’s always fun to see the creativity and talent of these kids.

From dancing to singing or even telling jokes, it brings you back to being that age and how thrilling it could be to get onstage and perform in front of your family and friends.

And what’s even more impressive is the confidence to get onstage and do your thing without fear and, in some cases, a care in the world of judgment.

It’s refreshing to see these little humans doing things or trying something new so bravely. It really acts as a reminder and lesson in our own lives about how to live.

At some point in life, we all started being a little scared of trying something new or a bit out of our comfort zone. It became slightly harder to try new things and do some things that maybe even scare us a little.

It makes you wonder how much more we would do or accomplish if we approached life and doing things with this same fearlessness. How much further ahead might we be, or how many more things might we have accomplished in our lives?

I see this every day in the health and fitness world: allowing fear, worry and stress to stop us from starting something, taking action or embarking on the first step. And it’s perfectly common and natural to feel this way, so if you do, congratulations – you are normal.

But at the same time, I cannot count the number of times and people who, after getting started making themselves and their fitness a priority, have said they wish they had started sooner or that they hadn’t let fear hold them back.

The words “I don’t know what I was afraid of” are often said.

The truth is that you never regret starting. But we need to take that first step. We need to do the thing we think we are afraid of. Because it’s worth it. Your health is worth it. Your family and friends are worth it. And because, frankly, you are that important.

Maybe we need to get back in touch with the kid version of ourselves. The tiny version of us who might be a bit more adventurous, just for a moment. And just to get started. The one who was just a little bolder and would belt out a song without a care in the word if it was in the right key.

Because our lives are a talent show. Let’s show ourselves what we've got!