Scared? No I'm terrified! But what of?

Fear is an interesting thing. We need it because it's what stops us from walking out in front of cars, walking over the edge of cliffs, crashing into each other on the road. But when I break my fears down, they are based on so much more than the fact that I might hurt myself. My biggest fear is that of the unknown.

How insane is that? Because I can't know everything. I don't have a crystal ball. Nor would I want one. How boring would life be if you knew what was going to happen everyday before it happened? And yet here I am, trying to predict the future so that I know what to do next. 

I crunched some numbers the other day. If we were to find money for the land from another source that wasn't raised by events we'd still be looking at 200k for the facilities. If you break that down over two years, that's 8k a month we need to raise in order to achieve our goals. I don't know how to do that - yet. And does that scare me? Hell yes! Mainly because I can't bear the thought of not running camps for two years!  So may be we should extend the time to three years or four years, we could generate 2k a month if we do enough.

But that seems such a long time!!! Four years without camps??

The thing about time guys, is it passes anyway and if I'd have know five years ago that we'd be in this position instead of 5 months ago, I could have been putting things in place back then. That five years came and went and we all enjoyed what we had in the moment without ever really expecting it to end. There is a great book called Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson. It's about two mice, one who expects his cheese to just keep coming and the other who realises it's running out. Well worth a read if you want to figure out how to deal with changes in your life. I think I should have read it again five years ago because clearly I'd forgotten some of it's lessons! 

The way I actually see things happening is that a few of us get together, we hold some fab events, we have some fun together and the momentum grows. We set a target of say £4k for each month at first and miss it by a mile until one day we hit it! Then we make it higher, raise it to 6k and again we hit it because now we know it's working. Think of the Blue Peter challenges where they used to have the thermometer like measure of what target they'd smashed this week! 

Can you imagine being part of something that achieves so much? Can you see what you would learn to do? How your believe in yourself would grow and change if you came along for the ride? Imagine being responsible for running an event that raised £918! Well Natalie Tindall can tell us, because she did just that!  Imagine creating a reel or an Instagram post that went viral and you were the one who made it? You see when someone knows how to do something it takes them five minutes when they don't it takes hours. 

It also takes courage. 

Nat had run an event like that before so she had some experience. I have never run events as simple as a Quiz night or a Bingo evening. I've created a total of one reel and Instagram baffles me. So now we go back to the fear...

False
Evidence
Appearing
Real

Because I have never run these things, I can't possibly have any fear about them because I don't know what will happen and my mind when it's scared, which isn't often I confess, goes into negative over thinking mode. If I let my mind wander, it goes into the world of 'What if!' But I know how damaging that can be. What if I'd never run my first camp?? Arrrggghhh! Nooooo! 

Over the years, I have trained myself to control my thoughts and feelings. To control my mind and the words that I use when I'm talking to myself. I'm not so great when it comes to talking to other people, my mouth speak before my brain has had chance to catch the words! And the what if become -What if this event is amazing. What if it's the first of hundreds? What if someone makes a new friend for life at a Bingo night or wins a prize that makes them really happy? What if the event is so good, that people can't wait for the next one? And if it's not, we'll make it that way!

Fear is baby steps, doing small events and then getting bigger. Think of it as jumping that first 50cm fence, you do it on repeat for a couple of days then you get a bit bored and you want to go higher. Soon 60cm becomes easy, then 70cm and each time you smash one goal, you celebrate like crazy then you move on to the next goal. 

Everything starts with an idea, then the foundations of the idea have to be built. Eventually the fabric of the idea takes shape and suddenly you are standing in your own idea of paradise that once seems like the most scary, crazy, overly ambitious thing to do ever!

Imagine standing in a beautiful stable block, horses all munching away happily, surrounded by lots of campers all excited for the next few days of bonding with their horses with like minded people - knowing that your efforts made that happen. 

Can you see yourself riding on an amazing school surface and popping brand new show jumps? Thinking, we made this happen! And all you did was something you already love doing for an event or two raised that raised the money for these shiny newly fenced sand schools!
 
I know I can do this, even though I don't know how quite yet. But I knew I could make my livery yards happen, I knew I could rescue all of the horses I have, I knew I could create and run my riding school and I know I could make camps happen. These were my baby step on my journey to creating The Camp Space. I have no fear about whether we can or not. I have no fear about putting on events that I've never done before. But I am terrified of not being able to run camps because they make life so much better for so many people and I don't want us to lose them.

Sometimes to get over fear you have to look at the big picture to make the little things seem less scary. So lets start small and build momentum. Let's see if we can reach crazy targets and crazy heights. 

And for now, can I ask you to take the smallest baby step ever?

Can you share this blog please? We need to create a huge community and if shares leads somewhere, we will get there. 


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