Fears and Faith

The 2009 San Francisco walk was scheduled for Oct 2-4. I signed up in March. My primary fear was the fundraising. To walk, each person has to raise a minimum of $2,300. In this economy, that was intimidating to me. For many months I worried and fretted. Would I raise enough? How was I going to do it? What if I couldn’t? How much could we afford to give if I needed to make up the difference in order to walk?

By the beginning of Sept I was just about $500 short of the minimum. I stopped worrying about money and started worrying about other things. (At the time of this writing, I have raised $3,325. Donations still accepted until the end of Oct -http://www.the3day.org/GoTo/LoriBradshaw)

Physical - Can I do this? Can I walk 60 miles in 3 days? Am I fit enough? Did I train enough? Will my bad ankle handle it? The badly broken baby toes? Will my feet be ok or will the orthotics bother them after awhile? Will I get enough rest sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag so that my body can recover from one day to be able to handle the next?

Psychological - I don't know anyone who is walking. I will be in a huge group of total strangers. I want to think that I will be able to handle it but the old fears are back. I'll be sharing a tent with a stranger. I'll be in crowds 24/7 and I do not handle crowds well at all. This would be a huge step outside my comfort zone. You may find it hard to believe but I'm really a very shy, introverted person by nature. The thought of spending 3 days under these conditions was very intimidating for me.

Some days I would sit and think about it (too much probably) and all that would come to mind was "What in the HELL was I thinking????"

Then I found the quote from my fundraising page:

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.”

I made the choice to set my fears aside and step out in faith. In doing so, I left behind the possibility of failure and was able to move forward planning for success and achieving it.