“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”

– Brene Brown-

I have always strived for perfection. To be the best. I have never been good at doing things that I am not good at. As I grow and learn I have realized that this has stopped me from doing a lot of things in my life. I have been afraid to walk in the arena because I didn’t want to lose.

Somewhere along the way something changed. I realized that life was too short to let opportunities pass because I was scared to fail, to look bad, to be imperfect. The shame that I had associated with losing or failing could not stop me from trying. From starting to teach fitness classes, to writing this blog, to opening my heart or asking for what I want. I made myself vunerable. I knew that I might not be perfect. And that scared the shit out of me… but I did it anyways.

Funny enough the more I tried…the more I tried. Sometimes I failed but in most cases it opened up a whole world I had wanted for so long but was afraid to touch. When I did fail I learned so much about myself, it did not stop me from trying again. In fact, it made me stronger.

Courage and vunerability go hand in hand.

Time to enter the Arena.

This weekend I am entering an arena. A real one. I am not the best, not even close. Since I wasn’t the first one chosen I never felt “deserving” of my spot. It’s funny because a while back, when I realized I probably wouldn’t make the team I started telling people I didn’t want it. I wasn’t ready. A protective mechanism. 

You can’t fail if you don’t try… you also cannot succeed.

But here I am. One of the chosen ones going to represent my team, my club, my second home, my second family. I have never been more proud and more excited. It doesn’t matter that I am not the best. What matters is that I suck it up, try my best and leave it all out on the arena floor.

My biggest fear is that people will judge me or that I will choke. But that fear is going to put a fire under my ass instead of make me run away. Not this time. I will take the challenge.

I am not ready. I will never be ready. I am not bulletproof nor am I perfect. But I am up for the challenge.

Just walking in the arena is my victory.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

– Theodore Roosevelt.