It’s Not About Being Fearless

My phone buzzed. A text from my sister.

She was boarding her plane for a weekend of ropings and rodeos.

It makes me nervous traveling to just a bordering state – I have so much respect for your crazy travels!

It’s a sentiment I hear often. People assume that because I’ve toured the country in a van, motorbiked across Ecuador, and traveled solo through foreign lands that I must be fearless. And that’s simply not true.

To be honest I’m a rather unlikely adventure seeker. I like familiarity, love being in control of my situation, and luxuriate in normal, mundane pleasures . I easily get overwhelmed by fast-moving places, hoards of people and unfamiliar experiences.

So how did I end up leaping from one adventure to the next with so much gusto?

I’ll tell you what I told Kelsey.

You just have to keep doing it to get less nervous. I always have a few times during every trip where I feel like crying from overwhelm. You got this!

I’m not fearless and you don’t have to be either to seek adventure.

You just have to be committed. To give it a go. To fall five times and get up six.

It’s not about being fearless. It’s just about doing it. You got this.