Fear of failure and transitioning to full-time self-employment

I have officially transitioned out of a w-2 job. I’m hoping to use my time to focus on writing more children’s books, keeping up with this blog, participating in events to sell my current book “Armor of God” and other merchandise that goes along with it (t-shirts, mugs and tumblers) and to volunteer with a couple organizations that I love.

My goal is to post at least once a week. Ideally, I’ll get in a rhythm and be posting twice per week. I’m having a really difficult time processing through all the thoughts about what I want to post though. My brain is going a million miles a minute, and yet when I start to write, nothing makes sense.

If you have ever seen the movie “Mom’s Night Out,” Allyson claims that she’s stress paralyzed. And that’s how I feel when I am overwhelmed. I cannot move. I literally just lay in bed and listen to music and watch movies. After frustration with myself and some serious soul searching, I realized that I am a perfectionist. I get ‘stress paralyzed’ because I fear that I’m going to fail. That’s why I start so many DIY projects, and I don’t complete them. If they are not complete, then technically I didn’t fail at them (yet). It is also why I don’t start many projects that I would like to (for example: a new blog post).

Fear is my biggest enemy, specifically fear of failure or rejection. With the word ‘fear’ in my mind, I’m digging into God’s Word and studying up on what God says about fear. I’ve heard it said many times that “Do not fear” or some form of it is written in the Bible 365 times, once for each day of the year. While it’s a comforting thought, I’ve been searching and found that’s not exactly true.

Stick with me while I navigate through my own fears and I plan to share more about what I find about fear in The Holy Bible in the future. For now, I’ll leave you with this verse that I’m trying to cling to:
Joshua 1:9 “…Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”