Finding the Courage to Try Before You Feel Ready

Most of us say we want to grow, but when it comes time to step out of our comfort zone, we hesitate. Not because we don’t care, but because trying something we’ve never done before puts us face to face with uncertainty, insecurity, and the possibility of getting it wrong.

In this eighth episode in my Habit Series, I’m inviting you to practice a simple but powerful habit: trying something new. Not restarting a habit you’ve tried before, but stepping into something unfamiliar on purpose. A new skill. A new experience. A new way of showing up.

I talk about why this matters more than we realize, how trying something new strengthens courage and perseverance, and why your brain and your dream both benefit when you stop quitting before you’ve truly begun. 

I also share reflection questions to help you notice what’s really holding you back, plus an invitation to try something new alongside other women through our monthly co-working calls.

If you’ve felt stuck, bored, hesitant, or quietly restless, this episode might be the nudge you need to take one small, brave step today.

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Produced by Jonathan R. Clauson.
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Transcript

Merritt Onsa:
What is something you could do today that would impact your God shaped dream and your ability to persevere in it for the long haul? Hi, I'm Merritt Onsa your devoted dreamers host, and I am an authority on what it looks like to pursue a God shaped dream. And over the next several mini episodes, I'm going to be talking about building simple, small habits that will build into you confidence and the consistency you need to run your race after the dream God has given you. Let's build some new habits. If you could use a little extra accountability to make keeping your habits a tad bit easier, I've got a free habit tracker for you on my website at merrittonsa.com/habits.

So the habit I wanted to talk to you about today is very simply try something new and you're probably doing that right about now, if you've engaged in any new habit recently, whether at the beginning of the year or otherwise, but for a lot of us, the quote new habits that we want to test out are often things that we've tried before, things that maybe haven't gone the way that we hoped or like for me, you know, drinking water, like I need to drink water every day of my life. And so that's not what I mean by trying something new. And I'm not discounting the importance of starting again when you didn't have the results with a habit you wanted the last time actually I'm talking about something completely different in the idea of try something new.

I want to differentiate "new habits" from trying a new thing. And maybe I should use the word hobby with this. It's just, that's not a word I really relate to or use in my life, but the types of things I'm talking about; and I will just give you a list of not all of these things have I tried recently, but this is the kind of thing I'm referring to. So learning to bake sourdough bread. Maybe you tried that during the pandemic, brewing kombucha, you know, the fuzzy fermented tea, making your own yogurt. It could be like making anything that you've never made before. It could be like making a new casserole. Although if you really frequently cook, it probably is not going to feel that new to you, but trying something new. I actually, I made puppy chow, the Chex, powdered sugar, chocolate chip thingy. I made that for my kid's birthday this last weekend. I will say, that did not go well. I would probably use a different recipe next time, but I tried something new.

How about singing in a choir, picking up a musical instrument that maybe you haven't touched for 20, 30 years. How about using the pottery wheel? You know, the thing that spins and then you like use your hands to mold a misshapen coffee mug. Try pottery. Volunteering for an organization you care about, but maybe asking to do something that you've never done before that you might be scared about. Going to a nursing home and reading to someone who's elderly and lonely.

What about beginning a new type of exercise or dance. Like have you ever learned the tango or kickboxing or I have a friend who does Krav Maga. What about ballet, tap dancing? Any of those might be brand new to you. Learn a new language. For a while I was using that Duolingo. That's how you say it. That app to try to learn Spanish. Now I was doing it at a time when I had a pretty young baby. So I fell off that wagon pretty quickly, but learn something new.

Try something new that you've never done before, that you might even feel a little skeptical or uneasy about picking up something new. Like, I don't know how to do this or I don't know what equipment is needed or, you know, is there like a baseline of something that I should know in advance before I start this thing? And most of the things that I just mentioned have a pretty low barrier to entry, like Google it, you know, find the easy way and give it a shot. I mean, what's the worst that could happen, right? And then as you're thinking through, you know, this is for the skeptical, uneasy feeling person about trying something you've never done before. I've got some reflection questions for you to kind of pursue and think about like, why, why might I be feeling some resistance to this? So question number one, I want you to ask: What assumptions do you have about yourself or a particular activity? Like, what are you thinking might be true about you or that activity that's standing in the way of you saying yes to trying that new thing?

Is there fear? Is there something else? Insecurity? Whatever it is, ask yourself and then ask, is it worth it to me to have the benefits of trying something new, which are like neuroplasticity and like getting outside your comfort zone, great benefits. Is it worth it to push past those in order to try something new? Reflection question number two is: once you have tried the thing, even if you felt uneasy or skeptical about it, reflect on what you learned after a few attempts. Now, maybe you could reflect on what you learned after the first attempt, but like for me, when I started baking sourdough bread, I've gone through multiple iterations of like, do I want to make it in a loaf or do I want to make the like pretty round boule? And I started really on the low shelf and I needed to spend some time reflecting on the experience in order to decide like, do I have it in me to continue to try this and improve it because I actually want to try some sourdough bread that I've made that tastes good and doesn't look terrible, but spend some time reflecting on what maybe you've learned once you try something new. And then maybe this last one is less of a reflection question and more of an encouragement to you, but don't give up before you've actually begun. If the habit is called try something new, decide what trying means to you. Is trying just reading about it and deciding, no, I can't cut that.

Or is trying like actually getting your feet wet or your hands dirty or like, you know, going to the place where you could learn this new thing and taking a couple of lessons or maybe you're watching instructional videos on the internet. Like, is it enough of an attempt before you give up? Don't give up when you've had a failure or two, when you've had a struggle or when it just didn't work out the way you want it to; just don't even allow yourself to judge that if you can help it, put no judgment on it.

You know, I'm just going to try this and the outcome can be what it is. And again, to reiterate why it's important that we try new things. There is evidence that the brain can restructure or rewire itself and continue developing throughout our lifetime. The term you may have heard is neuroplasticity. Just Google that. You'll find dozens of articles to affirm the value of keeping your brain active and challenged by new experiences for mental health benefits and for protecting against cognitive decline. So highly recommend the value of trying something new and then going back and thinking about like, what did I learn and how did this benefit me? And you're probably not gonna feel your brain rewiring itself, but it is happening. And ways to make it easy, simply involve a friend or make it a game, involve one of your children or find the thing that you might want to do, that you might want to try. Maybe somebody in your life is already doing it. So you could say, Hey, can I come along with you? I always do better going to the gym if a friend is meeting me, I always do better, you know, learning a new exercise or a dance or singing a choir or whatever, if I get to be with people that I enjoy and I love. So that's how you could make it easy to try something new. Speaking of getting to do something new alongside other people.

I have a group of podcast listeners who meet on a monthly basis for something called co-working. Maybe you want to try something new alongside us. Let me give you a little sneak preview of how co-working works. Every single one of us has those back burner projects that we know we need to get done. Or we'd like to find time to get them done, but ultimately that time never comes and the projects stay on the shelf. Now, this could be something related to your dream.

Or it could be one of those other things that you keep saying, ⁓ I can't really get into my dream until I get all these other things off my plate or off my to-do list, because those are like family priorities or personal priorities, like whatever it is. ⁓ some examples, like maybe it's something fun and reminiscent that you know you need to work on, finally finishing your child's baby book or starting it. If it's your second, third, or whatever number child other than your first.

You got to get that thing done before they go to college, right? It's weighing on you. You know it, but when is the time to finally finish? Or maybe it's cleaning out your inbox. Like Christa Hutchins talked about in the managing your email episode earlier this week. In fact, I had one friend who it wasn't managing her email, but she needed to back up files in her computer and then do a defragmentation. Yeah, not the most glorious project, but this month she showed up to our co-working session saying something like, I love to create, but I really can't right now because I keep getting these warnings on my computer that I don't have space on my hard drive to create new things. So I'm going to commit to this project in order to free up literal space so that I can continue doing what I love, which is creating new things. I just loved hearing her reasoning for why this was the project she chose for this period of time. And then she devoted those two hours of co-working with us on zoom earlier this month, and she got her project finished.

And you should have seen the smile and the relief on her face when she was done. She was just glowing after getting that thing off her plate. Okay. So let's answer the obvious question. What does co-working actually entail? Like, what is this? I'm like magic pill. No, co-working is literally an appointment with yourself. So we put the date and time on our calendars. And then each of us commits to showing up with a project in mind that can reasonably be finished or close to finished or a chunk of it is finished in a one hour session. All of this happens on zoom, the video conferencing app. And so as we gather, we have a brief bit of connection time at the beginning where you share what you're going to work on really quickly. ⁓ each person gets to share. You get to hear like what everybody's going to do. And then five to 10 minutes at the end, we report back and celebrate what each person finished. But the rest of the time, you're still on zoom, but your camera and your microphone are off and you're just head down getting the work done--focused. I can't tell you how much this commitment to focus this time on a particular project will help you just like tune out everything else, like the text messages, the social media. You're like, It's going to end at this predetermined time. And I know I need to get to work. You would not believe how effective co-working is at finally getting something crossed off your list. That's been nudging you for attention.

You want to join us for the next co-working session? It's just $10, which is a steal. If you consider how long that project of yours has been hanging over your head, grab your spot for the next session at merrittonsa.com/coworking. That's yes, coworking all run together. One word. I can't wait to see you in there, getting things done, checking them off your list and celebrating with your sisters in Christ when you're finished.