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How to move forward even when you’re scared

  • Feb 23
  • 3 min read

Updated: Mar 11

Fear is a necessary part of life. Learning how to lean into it can change everything.



Now we're going to do the most human thing of all: attempt something futile with a ton of unearned confidence and fail spectacularly!” (Michael, “The Good Place”, season 2, episode 10)


I was watching “The Good Place” with some friends recently, and this quote from a character named Michael has been lingering in my mind ever since.


At one point in the show, a group of friends is facing a situation with near impossible odds. Despite this, they decide to risk their lives and go for it anyway with, as Michael puts it, “a ton of unearned confidence”.


It got me thinking about how many things I do with unearned confidence. The answer? Not very many.


I tend to be a perfectionist, and I often end up talking myself out of doing the things I feel drawn to because I’m afraid of making a mistake and embarrassing myself.


Kiss fear on the mouth

But what if I didn’t have to walk around stifling my dreams just because I’m afraid of a little failure and embarrassment? How much more fulfilling and abundant would life be if I walked around with a ton of unearned confidence instead?


There is a podcast I’ve listened to several times that discusses how fear is actually a necessary part of life.


Thomas McConkie, the podcast host, even goes so far as to say, “We don’t tend to live as fearlessly as we could, as courageously, because we’re not nearly afraid enough. We don’t nearly move into fear deeply enough to actually discover the depths of our courage.”


He goes on to say, “Fear is the horizon of your known world.” Sometimes the right thing to do is step back, other times we need to walk right up to the edge of fear and kiss it on the mouth. (His words, but I wish they were mine.)


Every time I hear this idea, I am blown away by its wisdom. It makes me want to run out into the world and move so deeply into my fear that I come out the other side a changed woman.

One way I’m trying to do this is by suspending my disbelief.


Suspend your disbelief

Suspending disbelief is a concept in the entertainment industry. In order for certain types of media to be enjoyable, we, as the audience, are required to suspend our disbelief—to turn off our logical brains and allow our imaginations to run wild, to willingly believe in something that might not actually be possible.


For example, to fully enjoy Star Wars, we need to willingly believe that space wizards who can move things with their minds and fight with laser swords exist. If we don’t allow ourselves to do this, our logical brains will just keep saying, “This isn’t possible; it’s not real,” and we’ll walk away from the movie disappointed.


The same is true in our daily lives.


I’ve allowed fear and my disbelief in myself to stop me from doing many things over the years.

Most recently, I allowed my fear to stop me from starting this blog. But something changed when I thought about suspending my disbelief, moving forward with “unearned confidence”, kissing fear on the mouth and expanding the horizon of my known world.


This made it so that instead of sitting and stewing over the perfect way to word something or worrying about people judging me, I could lean into my courage and just start. Eventually, I hope to gain more confidence as I keep writing and posting and moving forward. But for now, I have to choose to suspend my disbelief every day and move forward despite my fear and anxiety about failure and success.


I’m not saying it’s easy to lean into our fear, but it is possible.


Walk around with a ton of unearned confidence. Kiss fear on the mouth. Suspend your disbelief. And let me know what happens!


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