February Monthly Resolution – Fearless Month

The plan: February is Fearless Month.

Many of you know that I occasionally do Monthly Resolutions instead of yearly. This means less of a commitment than usual. The last yearly resolution I did was to eat vegetarian at restaurants for a year. It was eye opening, and I was very thankful that I lived in SF and not Arizona. That said, I found 12 months of strictness to be overwhelming. This next month is going to be an interesting experiment. I’ve been doing 6-pack abs month for January and I’m down about 16 lbs, eating more healthily, exercising more, and in general feeling better about myself. Fearless month is going to be much more mental than physical.

Fearless month is, in and of itself, intimidating. I’ve been paying attention to all of the things I do every day that are fear-based. Or rather, many of the things I DON’T do as a result of fear. The people I don’t talk to, the actions I don’t take. But there’s a lot of questions I have around fear in general.

Is politeness a result of fear? If I’m unselfish, is that motivated by a desire to be nice, or a desire to nto upset the status quo? I’m going to have to do a lot of introspection this month to really get to the root of my true motivations for things. This may also mean me trying things and evaluating the results.

This leads me to the rules of the month, too. The basic concept is this: If there’s something I would normally not do as a result of fear, I should feel compelled to do it. Obviously this is a very flawed statement. I shouldn’t go running through traffic, jumping off buildings, or stabbing people just because I’d be afraid of the result. So, revision is in order: If I would normally not do something and the result would not produce lingering negative results on my life, I should do it.

There’s some other rules I think I need to stick to, as well. I shouldn’t quit my job, spend all my money, eat things that make me sick, etc. Most of the things I’m imagining have to do with social phobias, physical challenges, and essentially a lot of the laziness in my life. Two years ago, I did “one extra step month” which meant that if I could, I should take one extra step with everything I did. When I would wash the dishes, I’d also clean a counter, when I’d walk to work, I’d go an extra block. It was amazing how one extra step added up and made a better day. The main reason for not taking an extra step seems to be laziness, and the main reason for laziness seems to be fear. I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Oh yeah, and as an added benefit to Fearless Month, I don’t see any reason other than fear to not keep going with cumulative 6-pack abs months, especially since I can’t see them yet.