What I Learned by Facing My Fears

In the last few months, I have been thrown in the deep end of leadership, launching and leading an organization with a team of gifted, brilliant female leaders called IF:Gathering. Feelings of pressure, adrenaline, failure, joy, conflict, and paralyzing fear seem to all bounce in me on any given day. Because, here is the thing about leading something.... you will be loved and hated.

The irony is, several years ago, due to a terrible case of people-pleasing and a rather strong fear of public humiliation, I existed entirely on the back row of life. I sat safely in the dark, away from stages, away from criticism, away from helping people, my gifts tucked neatly under my chair in the name of humility.

So, as one facing her two worst fears, being hated and/or humiliated, let me tell you what I have learned:

1. Receive criticism. If you want to lead well, just never defend yourself again. Take it. Jesus actually meant it when He said, “To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” Luke 2:28 Because it is the very most freeing way to live. (Note: I did not say easy). I learned this one the hard way, and let’s just say it led me to my next lesson.
2. Humility is often closely connected to humiliation. Because we can only fake humility alone in the dark on back rows. Humility is built in battle, in the moments you are running and fighting and leading, and you fall, and people see and then they know you aren’t God and you remember you desperately need God.
3. Love the fear. As a child, I hated feeling nervous. My mom used to say, “It’s just butterflies.” So I sat in the back of life for decades, avoiding “butterflies." I successfully avoided nausea and the very best parts of life. If you ever want to do anything of significance, you have to learn to love the sick, tense feeling in your belly instead of hate it. It doesn’t seem to ever leave me these days. So I am making the butterflies my friends.
4. People liking you is overrated. If you love being liked by everyone, you are living a boring life. So just quit. Get over it. Let pleasing God become bigger than pleasing people.

Face your worst fear, friends, and they start to go away.